The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 35: what you’re looking at

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

16 REYNOLDS’ WORKS whom he had corresponded at distant intervals. She was rich, occupied a splendid mansion at the West End of the metropolis, frequented the best society, and gave grand parties. A thorough woman of the world, she had all the callousness, amounting almost to heartlessness, usually characteristic of one who makes fashionable appearances her whole and sole study. The only notice she had con- descended to take of her humble and poor relations at Oxford was the sending them a basket of game and a turkey at Christmas, accompanied by a brief note conveying the compliments of the season; and the acknowledgment of the cift, together with an expression of similar compliments, formed the extent of the captain’s periodical correspondence with Mrs. Bailey. But now that the poor captain had such anxious cares relative to his daughter, he wrote a long letter to Mrs. Bailey, detailing the serious alteration of his circum- stances in consequence of the fire. In this letter he spoke with a father’s pride of the exquisite beauty of Eliza, the amiability of her disposition, and her dutiful conduct as a daughter, adding that his means had enabled him, though by dint of great sacrifices, to give her an education not altogether apart from certain elegant accomplishments. Now, this letter arrived at a time when Mrs. Bailey felt the want of some new attraction to give zest to her entertain- ments, which the fashionable world began to consider rather ‘ slow affairs,’’ the same faces being constantly met in Mrs. Bailey’s drawing-rooms. ‘The idea struck her that her re- quirement might be fulfilled in the person of Miss Lacey, if she were even only half as beautiful as the paternal pride had depicted her. She accordingly lost no time in writing back to Oxford, assuring Captain Lacey, with much seeming kindness in the wording of her letter, that she sympathized deeply with him in his misfortunes, and inviting himself and Eliza to come and pass a few months with her in Grosvenor Square. She enclosed a bank-note for twenty pounds, begging that the remittance might not be taken as an offence, but merely as a subsidy to defray the travelling expenses of those who were about to confer an obligation on herself by giving her their companionship. Captain Lacey was overjoyed at this really unexpected goodness, as he considered it, on the part of his relative. Eliza would fain have lingered a few weeks longer at Oxford, Gomichbooks (E(0)