The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 248: what you’re looking at

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

THE SELLIS TRAGEDY 219 he wished his wife to make for a little party that he proposed to give in the course of the ensuing week to celebrate the birthday of one of his children. Mrs. Sellis promised com- pliance with all her husband’s suggestions, and at two o’clock they reéntered their lodgings. Dinner was served up, and Sellis ate with his usual appetite. But scarcely was the meal over when one of the children was taken ill with indigestion. The surgeon was sent for, and although there was no positive danger, yet such was the anxiety of Sellis that he requested his wife to let the child remain with her that night, observing that he would sleep in his own room in the duke’s suite of apartments. Mrs. Sellis consented, and in the evening, between six and seven o’clock, Sellis repaired to the room alluded to, to see that it was in proper order for him to pass the night there; because, I should observe, it was not Sellis’s week for being on duty about the person of his royal master, —it was Neale’s turn, — and thus Sellis was not supposed to be occupying his room in the ducal apartments, but to be sleeping (as was his wont when off duty) in his own lodgings. I may further add that the chamber of which I am speaking, and which must be called Sellis’s room, was at the end of a passage communi- cating with the duke’s private apartment, and that adjoining this apartment, indeed, separated from it by only a thin partition of wainscot, was Neale’s room. Be kind enough to keep these particulars in your memory — ”’ ‘I shall not lose sight of them,’”’ observed Lady Prescott. ‘“ Pray proceed, my dear friend. I am dying with curiosity.” “T am now approaching the blood-stained chapter of this narrative,’ said Mrs. Bredalbane. ‘‘ It appears that Sellis, having assured himself that his room was in order, and that the housemaid had not omitted to set it to rights since he last slept there, was about to return to his wife, when he bethought himself of something that he wished to say to Neale. He accordingly repaired to Neale’s room, and with the familiarity usually subsisting between the fellow members of the same household, he opened the door without knocking. But suddenly starting back in dismay, he exclaimed, ‘ Heavens! the Princess Augusta!’ and fled along the passage. But in his precipitate flight he ran against Joux, the duke’s third valet, who was advancing up the passage at the moment, and who had heard that ejaculation CoOnniclooolks (C(O)