The Works of George W. M. Reynolds — page 394: what you’re looking at

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

FURTHER UNRAVELMENT old ceived the child from another gipsy woman who was a per- fect stranger to her, that this other gipsy woman had told her she had got the child a few weeks back from a gang of tramps of her own race, but with whom she had likewise been previously unacquainted. ‘Whether true or whether false, the narrative afforded the Deverils no clue to the discovery of the unfortunate child’s parents. In their indignation at the thought that the poor little innocent might have possibly been torn away from a comfortable home, they made use of some threatening language to the elderly gipsy woman, to the effect that there were laws and authorities to compel her to give a more satis- factory account than she had done of the way in which she became possessed of that infant. Either being really alarmed, or else having had the child already long enough upon her hands, the gipsy suddenly laid the infant down on the grass by the roadside, and darted away as fast as her legs could earry her. Considering that she was an elderly person, she sped at an astonishing rate; and though Deveril pursued her, so soon as he recovered from the astonishment into which the suddenness of that proceeding had thrown him, he could not overtake her. He lost her amidst a maze of lanes leading out from the highroad where the occurrence took placc, and it is therefore probable that while he was pursuing one direction, she had plunged into some by-path in another. When he retraced his way to the spot where he had left his wife, he found her seated on the bank with the child in her arms. “ Your lordship can guess the sequel. The Deverils were generous-hearted, though poor, and they resolved to adopt the unfortunate infant that had thus been thrown in their way. They gave it their own surname of Deveril, and the Christian name of William. A year afterward they had a child of their own; and of such angelic beauty was she that they called her Angela. Not for a moment, however, did they think of renouncing the task they had imposed upon themselves of rearing the little William, —- whom, indeed, they loved as much as if he had in reality been their own son. ‘They were not less intelligent and considerate than they were kind-hearted. They accordingly resolved to bring up William with the idea that he was in truth their own off- spring, until he should reach the age of manhood; and to CONNIE OOOKS (C(O)