The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 240: what you’re looking at

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

MR. SAMUEL EMANUEL 213 pletely hemmed in by the posse of impostors that he had some difficulty in getting from their midst, and in his indig- nation at being thus regarded as an object on whom to practise their deception, he let drop a few words to make them aware of what he had caught from the man’s own lips. Then the posse — from the man himself down to the youngest child — levelled at him the coarsest, filthiest abuse, and as he retreated in one direction, they took another, bending their way into a neighbouring street. Such was the narrative which Christian gave Christina, when the latter had described to him the spectacle that had met her own eyes in the wretched attic she had been visiting. They proceeded to the nearest pastry-cook’s, where they purchased some jelly; they bought some articles at a grocer’s, and they ordered bread from a baker’s. Then they returned into Redcross Street, and while Christian again waited for his sister, the latter ascended to Mary Wright’s chamber. She now learned a piteous tale from the poor dying creature’s lips, —a tale of an early orphanage and of total friend- lessness, — of dependence upon her own resources, of bitter poverty resignedly endured, and in defiance of all the tempta- tions which her beauty had brought in her way, of the insidious advance of consumption, and of poignant miseries and privations suffered when she was no longer enabled to work. ‘‘ Yesterday,’’ said the poor creature in conclusion, ‘‘I exerted sufficient energy to write to those who had employed me, imploring assistance. It was in the direst despair that I thus addressed them, and with no real hope in my heart, for, alas! I know full well the hardness of their own hearts. They have not been moved toward me, but Heaven has sent me a ministering angel in the form of yourself.”’ _ Christina did not choose to sadden the poor dying creature more deeply than she was already afflicted, by explaining that it had come to her knowledge that her appeal to the Emanuels was treated with brutal heartlessness. She re- mained upwards of an hour with Mary Wright, doing all she could to conduce to her comfort, and forcing her to partake of the food which was purchased for her use. She promised to return on the following day, and received the warmest, most heartfelt expressions of gratitude from the sufferer’s lips. Ere quitting the house, she sought another interview with the COU a LOOOLK<S (E(0)