The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 67: what you’re looking at

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

CHAPTER V THE JOURNEY TO PARIS Ler us now return to Agatha, Emma, and Julia Owen, who had embarked at Woolwich on board a revenue cruiser, to be conveyed to France. They were attended by an elderly gentlewoman who served as a sort of duenna, or guardian, and who had long been intimate with Mrs. Owen, the young ladies’ delectable mother. She was a widow, her name was Ranger, and, having no ostensible means of income, was very glad to make money by any means, no matter what intrigue or machination might be involved in the service entrusted to her. She was not, however, entirely in the secret of the young ladies’ mission to the Continent. She knew that they were to enter the household of the Princess of Wales; she was likewise well aware that the royal princes had for some time past been frequent visitors at the mansion at Rich- mond; and her idea of female virtue was not of such an exalted character as to induce her to suppose that a mere platonic friendship had subsisted between the Misses Owen and the voluptuary sons of George III. The construction she therefore put upon the matter was that the young ladies, having bestowed their favours upon the princes, were rewarded by obtaining, through their indirect influence and recommendations, lucrative posts in the household of the Princess of Wales. Mrs. Ranger herself was the most plausible woman in existence, though in reality a perfect Hecate of iniquity. She was indeed ten thousand times worse than Mrs. Owen suspected her to be. This lady fancied that she was merely an astute, clever, and shrewd woman, not overparticular how she made money nor in what service she was enlisted, 48 CONNIE NOOO KS (C(O)