The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 387: what you’re looking at

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

306 REYNOLDS’ WORKS. ‘Splendid forced fruit from Covent Garden to-day, my lord,’ said Madame Angelique. ‘‘ Melons, pineapples, erapes — ”’ ‘Well, send up all you have got. And now I hope you will amuse yourself with our worthy friend Bertin, who is discretion personified. I am sure if it were not for you two, I don’t know what gentlemen and ladies having pretty little intrigues to carry on could possibly do.” ‘“‘ Well, my lord, I do flatter myself that neighbour Bertin and I carry on the business with a discretion that is un- paralleled. But then,’ continued the milliner, “so long as we have such excellent patrons as your Grace, we are re- warded for our trouble and anxiety.” The duke smiled at the thought of Madame Angelique’s anxiety as he glanced at the well-spread table, and nodding her a familiar good night, he quitted the room. Returning to the luxuriously furnished apartment where he had left the four young ladies, he found a table spread with all kinds of wine, fruits, and other light refreshments. Nothing could be more sensuously refined than everything which met his ! view. The apartment flooded with light, the rich furniture, the crimson draperies, the brilliant mirrors, the wine spark- ling in the decanters, the fruit in the dishes of cut glass and in china baskets, and the ravishing loveliness of the four young women who were to be his companions at the festival, — all combined to elevate his spirits and win him away from certain sombre reflections which had been hanging upon his soul ere he sought the present scene. The atmosphere of the apartment was warm and perfumed, but without a sickly oppressiveness. The brilliant light was reflected in the eyes of the four charmers; it made their teeth gleam like pearls, their lips have the vivid semblance of wet coral; it displayed the dazzling transparency of their complexions to the utmost advantage, it shed aricher gloss on their naturally shining hair. “Come, my dear Marchmont,”’ said Lettice, ‘‘ and let me sit on one side of you.” “ And I,” said the young Irish girl, ‘‘ on the other.”’ ‘“But Marchmont loves to be at his ease,’ cried the sprightly Armantine, and she bounded from the room, in a few minutes returning with a costly flowered silk dressing- gown, the production of which elicited peals of merry laughter from herself and her companions. ecomicbooks.cor