The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 49: what you’re looking at

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

30 REYNOLDS’ WORKS least the duke observed nothing strange nor unusual on the part of his wife. For a moment she averted her eyes from the portrait. She thought, she hoped, that what she fancied might be a delusion produced by the circumstances of one image being ever uppermost in her mind, and that therefore perhaps in her morbid imaginings she beheld that image to a certain degree reflected in the canvas before her. But as again she glanced along the array of the last half-dozen scions of her husband’s family, or rather, their representations there, back to her mind came the conviction that it was no creation of the fancy, but that the pervasive resemblance was there, commencing feebly with the scion most remote, strengthening visibly with each of those that followed, until settling into that unmistakable similitude of a paternal proto- type. Therefore, again were her eyes riveted upon this last, and all her acutest memories were painfully revived, — mem- ories of the lost, the dead, the ever loved. ‘“ That,”’ said the duke, who still perceived nothing strange on the part of his wife, but merely attributed to a natural curiosity and interest the intentness with which her survey was fixed upon the last portrait of all those belonging to the family into which she had so recently entered, — “ that one represents my younger brother, the late Lord Clandon, who died a little more than a year back. It was most un- fortunate, just after he had been raised to the peerage, at the same time that my marquisate was raised to a duke- dom.”’ ‘‘ And the title of your marquisate, my lord? ”’ said Eliza, in a tone of inquiry, and though she stood still as a marble statue, ineffable feelings were agitating within. ‘The title to which I succeeded by the death of an old uncle a little more than two years back,” replied her husband, ‘was that of Viviandale. Shortly afterward it was elevated to the Dukedom of Marchmont. That same death rendered my younger brother Lord Vivian, but a lord only by courtesy, and he was raised to the peerage by the style and title of Baron Clandon.”’ ‘And previously to that death which first of all made him a lord by courtesy,’ said the duchess, ‘‘ I presume he was simply the Honourable Mr. Vivian? Forgive my igno- rance upon these subjects — ”’ And she stopped short. Not another word could she utter; Gomichbooks (E(0)