The Works of George W. M. Reynolds — page 279: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

262 REYNOLDS’ WORKS desired me to tell vou that you are all to be ready this evening between five and six o’clock, as he shall come and fetch you to go to some nicer lodgings.”’ | Henrietta with a heart almost too full to allow her to speak endeavoured to induce the porter to take some money, but he declared that he had already been adequately paid, and having deposited the packets upon the table, he took his departure. “Oh, what a change for us!’’ murmured Mrs. Leyden, the faintness of an overpowering joy coming over her. Henrietta hastened to throw her arms around her mother’s neck, saying, “ Do you think you will be able to get up? Oh, I hope so, for now that you have got ail your nice clothes again, and can go forth respectable as you were wont to do —” ‘“ Believe me, my dear child,’ responded Mrs. Leyden, straining her daughter to her bosom, and then lavishing her caresses upon little Charley, who had advanced up to the side of the couch, ‘‘ I am ten thousand times more grati- fied for your sake that all this has happened than for my own. Yes, my dear girl, I feel myself years younger, alike in health and spirits. Oh, it is necessary to drink deeply of the bitter waters of adversity in order to appreciate the sweetness of the returning founts of prosperity.”’ By the time another hour had elapsed, a great change had taken place in the appearance of the mother and daughter. Mrs. Leyden, having risen from her wretched pallet, had apparelled herself in a simple but genteel manner, while Henrietta had exchanged a faded and scanty garb for one which, without the slightest taint of finery, was alike elegant and tasteful. If in her discarded apparel she had seemed sweetly interesting, she now appeared exquisitely beautiful. Upon her cheeks, previously so very pale, there was now a delicate tint of the rose, but which even in its faintness and its delicacy was lovelier far than the bloom which art was wont to shed upon her countenance when she danced at the opera. The expression of her features was now bashfully charming rather than touchingly plain- tive, and there was a mild lustre in the beautiful blue eyes which were half-veiled beneath their thick, dark fringes. The symmetry of her figure was admirably set off by the genteel and ladylike garb that she had put on, and altogether Gomichbooks (E(@) m