The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 82: what you’re looking at

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

EDITHA 61 ceive that many rivals were deserted by their fickle gallants, who now hastened to pay their homage to hersellf. Lady Lechmere was a widow on the shady side of forty; and notwithstanding the disparity of their years, Lady Curzon being only six and twenty, the closest friendship existed between them. Amongst the brilliant company thus assembled at Lady Lechmere’s perhaps the only one of the male sex who could not boast of being descended either from some Norman cutthroat baron or from some vile harlot of the reign of Charles II, and who could not produce a genealogical tree containing a thousand names, or a coat of arms interwoven with the mosaic work of endless quarterings, the only man, in fact, who had no prestige of high birth, lofty rank, and proud title to recommend him to the notice of the fashionable _ world, was Mr. Emmerson, the bill-broker of Nicholas Lane, Lombard Street. It was true that if he possessed an office in the dingy regions of the City, he likewise owned a splendid house at Clapham; and that if he had no aristocratic title to embellish his name, at all events he had the reputation of enjoying an immense fortune. Nevertheless, these circum- stances would not have sufficed as an introduction into the exclusive circles of the West End had not some other influ- ence been exercised in order to throw open the gilded portals of fashion to admit him within the sphere of that roseate scene of luxury. What, then, had proved the talisman to open these doors to the bill-broker of Nicholas Lane? What was the mysteri- ous sesame which had produced this magic effect? It was to the Countess of Curzon that Emmerson was indebted for the extraordinary privilege which he thus enjoyed. In plain terms, Editha had become his mistress. Possessed of the forged bills, Emmerson had experienced but little trouble in coercing her; and when once she had abandoned herself to him in order to regain possession of those documents, she found that he was prepared to behave toward her with the utmost munificence. Steeped in debt, extravagant to a degree, having a thousand wants and no means of gratifying them, inasmuch as her tradesmen refused further credit, and she could obtain but little money from her husband, Lady Curzon eagerly availed herself of the proposals made by her City friend; and in return for Cconniclooolks (C(O)