The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 43: what you’re looking at

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

CHAPTER III THE DUCHESS OF MARCHMONT THE ceremony was over, the wedding-breakfast, given by Mrs. Bailey, and which was of a most splendid descrip- tion, likewise reached an end, the instant was approaching when Eliza, now Duchess of Marchmont, was to bid adieu to her father and her relative, and accompany her husband to whichsoever of the country-seats it was where the honey- moon was to be passed, but which the young bride knew not. She was even ignorant of the very names of them all. Re- tiring from the breakfast-table, she sought the chamber where her maid was in readiness to assist her in making the requisite change in her apparel for the journey, and it struck strange, almost unnatural to Eliza’s ear when she was ad- dressed as ‘‘ your Grace ”’ and “ my lady.” Her toilet being finished, she repaired to a parlour where she knew, according to an intimation given by her maid, that her father wished to say a few words to her in private, and bestow without restraint the last embrace before she was separated from him. There she found the old man in a state of happiness strangely blended with a nervous excitement, but assuredly not with grief at the prospect of parting. Not but that he loved his daughter dearly, as the reader well knows; his pride, how- ever, was too highly gratified, his relief from cares on account of her future welfare was too complete, and perhaps his sat- isfaction at the result of his plans was too full, to leave room for aught savouring of sorrow. Only that nervous excitement was blended, as a sort of alloy, with his other feelings, and this the unsophisticated Eliza took for the tinge of grief which it was natural to suppose that he ex- perienced, but which he really did not feel. “* My dearest girl,’”’ he said, clasping her in his arms, “* your 24 Gomicbooks (E(0)