The Works of George W. M. Reynolds — page 378: what you’re looking at

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

FLORINA O61 household to be aware of the circumstance. How was she to manage? Though in the purity of her heart hating and scorning anything that bordered upon duplicity, she now found herself reduced to the necessity of scheming somewhat in order to accomplish her purpose. After a little delibera- tion, the young lady decided how to act. She waited till her aunt had taken her departure to the house where she was to spend the evening, and then Florina rang the bell of her own private chamber. Her principal lady’s-maid, whose name was Sophia, immediately answered the summons, and Florina said, ‘‘ I feel so unwell this evening that I mean to lie down for an hour or two. Do not let me be disturbed until I ring for you.” Sophia, suspecting nothing, promised to obey her young mistress’s orders, and withdrew. It was now close upon nine o’clock, and Florina, putting on her plainest and simplest apparel, an unpretending straw bonnet with a veil, and a dark shawl, glided down a back staircase and succeeded in issuing unperceived from the house, there being a means of egress from the rear of the premises. We should add that she had locked the door of her own suite of apartments and had taken the key with her. On foot did the young lady proceed to the Regent’s Park, which, for the behoof of persons unacquainted with London, we may observe is at no very great distance from Cavendish Square. As she went on her way, Florina was several times on the point of turning back. She felt that in one sense there was some impropriety in the step she was taking, — that of a single young lady visiting a single young gentleman, and such a visit being paid at such an hour; but then she thought to herself that, after everything that had occurred on the previous day between herself and Deveril, it was a duty she owed to her own feelings as well as to those of that individual to suffer no unnecessary delay to elapse ere she had an ex~ planation with him. [If all the worst should be confirmed, he surely would not aggravate the present evil of his conduct toward her by boasting elsewhere that he had received such a visit; and if he were enabled to defend himself completely against the allegations of Lady Saxondale, he would rejoice and be grateful for the step Florina was now taking. Thus the young lady found more arguments to COnNIECLOOOkKS (C(O)