The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 209: what you’re looking at

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

182 REYNOLDS’ WORKS I was fearful it might be your Mr. Preston. And it is, too, there is no doubt. Joseph Preston, of Cambridge Terrace? ”’ Yes, it was the same, and this announcement came like a thunderbolt upon the brother and sister. For upwards of a minute they stood contemplating Mrs. Macaulay in blank dismay; then, as if simultaneously smitten by the same sentiment, which prompted them to seek consolation from each other, they locked themselves in a fond embrace. Mrs. Macaulay’s worst fears were confirmed from the effect which her intelligence had produced upon the twins. We have already said that she did not positively possess a bad heart, but her better feelings were almost completely over- ruled by her love of gain and her fear of loss, so that while, on the one hand, she really pitied the orphans, yet on the other she was already wondering to herself whether they could possibly think of keeping on their lodgings, and whether the rental of twenty-five shillings a week would be thenceforth safe. “Don’t you think you had better go at once,” she sug- gested, ‘‘to Mr. Preston’s house? I daresay the police are in possession of it; and you can at all events find out whether he has left behind him any papers regarding yourselves.”’ Christian and Christina were at once struck by the ex- cellence of this advice, and by the necessity of immediately following it. Mrs. Macaulay slowly retired from the room, and the twins, having again embraced each other, and whispered words of hope and consolation in each other’s ears, hastened to their respective chambers to dress for going out. In a few minutes they were ready, and they sallied forth together. As they proceeded along, arm in arm, toward the Regent’s Park, they spoke but little, yet they were constantly turning their handsome dark eyes upon each other, to infuse mutual encouragement by their looks. Each strove to assume an air of as much cheerfulness as possible, for the sake of the other, but both in their hearts entertained deep misgivings lest the crimes of Mr. Preston should prove ruinous to themselves. Many a passenger in the street lingered to gaze upon that interesting pair, — that young damsel with the sylphid form, that youth with the slender, graceful shape, both endowed with so high an order of beauty, and their twin condition being at a glance recognizable. But they saw not that they were thus the ECORMICLIOO KS (E(0)