The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 48: what you’re looking at

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

THE DUCHESS OF MARCHMONT 29 she had been alone, she might have given way to the pent-up feelings that were agitating in hersoul. Butshe was attended by two maids, and she dared not betray any inordinate emotion in their presence. Some days passed, during which nothing particular oc- curred that requires mention. In the meanwhile the duchess had inspected all the apartments of the immense mansion, and though, by the sumptuous elegance of the fashionable dwellings she had seen in London, she was prepared for all the evidences of boundless wealth in her new home, yet its splendour far eclipsed all her foreshadowings. One portion only remained unvisited, and this was the picture-gallery, which was under repair at the time of her arrival. Those repairs were finished, and one morning the duke proposed that she should inspect the place, which contained, as he stated, not only some paintings by eminent masters, but likewise the portraits of many of his oldest ancestors, as well as of his relatives who were more recently deceased. Thither they repaired. The paintings by the great masters occurred first in the gallery, and then came the portraits. Those of the duke’s elder ancestors engendered no particular sentiment beyond mere interest and curiosity, but when Eliza reached those of the relatives who were but recently deceased, strange thoughts and feelings began to take birth in her mind, — thoughts that seemed to be expanding into memories, feelings that appeared to connect the present with the past; and as she gazed with a growing wonderment, and even with consternation, the bewildering fancy which was at first dim, vague, and shapeless strengthened into a conviction that there was in these portraits a pervasive family similitude from which a never-to-be-forgotten image was neither estranged nor disconnected. But the last por- trait of all which hung in the array of successive family delineations — Eliza almost shrieked out as her eyes riveted their looks upon it. It represented a much older man than Bertram, but the resemblance between them was so striking, it seemed as if the oo could have been none other than Bertram’s father. Strange suspicions and wild Sanit ice swept through Eliza’s mind, but her agitation was concentrated within. The very tremor which thrilled through her was one of the soul rather than of the body; outwardly she was calm and serene, or at ¢om (@) Loo KS (E(O)