The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 250: what you’re looking at

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

INDORA 219 the same hour on which, eight days previously, we first in- troduced her to the reader. She was apparelled in a similarly fanciful style, only that she wore another dress, but the colours of the separate garments were chosen with a most tasteful regard to the delicate duskiness of the com- plexion and the nature of the charms they had to set off. Supremely beautiful — eminently handsome indeed — was the Princess Indora, as she reposed, in her Oriental garb, upon the velvet sofa in that sumptuously furnished room. And as before, too, there were intervals when she was deeply pensive, other intervals when she experienced a nervous excitement, for, as the reader is aware, it was on this evening that she was to receive the final decision of the object of her love. Presently the door opened, and Sagoonah made her ap- pearance. She entered, bearing the massive silver salver on which was the cut glass containing sherbet, and which she presented on bended knee to the princess. The Hindu woman was clad in the same style as that which we have before described, and which was so admirably calculated to set off the lithe bayadere symmetry of her shape, and to leave her form and limbs completely free for every movement and gesture. ‘“ Within the hour that is passing, my faithful Sagoonah,”’ said the princess, when she had quaffed a portion of the sherbet, ‘‘ my fate will be sealed. The alternatives between which I am balancing are happiness and misery. Both are in extremes, and there is no medium in which I may take refuge. You, Sagoonah, who have been my confidante, you who have served me so faithfully, you who shrank not from accompanying me on my long, long journey to a strange -clime, — you, I say, must feel some anxiety as to the result of this evening’s interview ?”’ “I do, lady,’ responded Sagoonah, and as she stood somewhat aside, her eyes suddenly flashed strange fires. ‘You know, Sagoonah,” continued the princess, ‘‘ how fondly, how devotedly I have for years loved that man. You know how godlike was his beauty when first he became my father’s prisoner — ”’ “I know it, princess,’’ responded Sagoonah. ‘I was then a girl of about ten years of age.”’ ‘““ And I was fifteen,’’ observed the princess, in a low. COUN a LOOKS (CO)