The Works of George W. M. Reynolds — page 399: what you’re looking at

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

CHAPTER XXX THE BIRTHDAY Ir was about four o’clock in the afternoon — about an hour previous to the scenes at Doctor Ferney’s house — that. several persons were assembled in the State Drawing- room at Saxondale House. These were Lady Saxondale, Juliana, Edmund, Lord Harold Staunton, Lord Petersfield, and Messrs. Marlow and Malton. This was the day on which, according to the baptismal certificate, the heir of Saxondale attained his twenty-first year. It was therefore a day of business, to be succeeded with festivities in the evening. ‘The table in the State Drawing- room where the assemblage had gathered was covered with parchments, deeds, and documents. The time had arrived when the guardianship of Lord Petersfield and Marlow and Malton was to terminate, when the requisite releases were to be signed by Edmund, and when the transfers of the Sax- ondale property were to be duly made by the trustees. We must glance at the demeanour and bearing of those present on the occasion. First of all, Lady Saxondale, look- ing eminently handsome, wore upon her countenance a certain expression of satisfaction, which Petersfield and the lawyers regarded as a becoming maternal pride in respect to the offspring who was now entering upon the enjoyment of his estates. The reader, however, will scarcely require to be informed that this expression on her ladyship’s features was rather one of triumph at the success of all her deeply laid schemes; for she had not the slightest fear that her own lawful and legitimate offspring, William Deveril, would preathe a syllable or raise a finger to prevent the consumma- tion of the monstrous fraud by which he was excluded from 382 CONNIE DOO KS (E(0)