The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 53: what you’re looking at

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

34 REYNOLDS’ WORKS afternoon. Our friends Sir William and Lady Lomax and their three daughters — who were present, you know, at the happy ceremony which made you mine — are likewise coming to pass a week with us. Tell me, dear Eliza, are you pleased with these arrangements ?”’ The duke studied his utmost to render himself and all his plans agreeable to his young bride, and with her habitual amiability, she expressed her gratitude and her satisfaction. ‘And there is another guest, too, whom we may expect this evening in time for the dinner-hour,”’ continued the duke. ‘“‘ My nephew, Lord Clandon, who has just returned from a long Continental tour, has written to offer his con- gratulations on my marriage, and to express his earnest desire to pay his respects to my beautiful duchess. The letter 1s altogether nicely and prettily worded, with a manly generosity and frankness, too, for which,’ added the duke, almost involuntarily, and in a sort of musing strain, “I should scarcely have given Hugh credit. However,’ he went on hastily to observe, as if ashamed at having thus betrayed even the slightest fear as to the impression which his marriage might have made upon his nephew, “‘I have answered him kindly, and invited him to visit us.” Again did the mention of that name of Clandon call up with painful vividness the memories of the past, — those memories which were in reality never absent from Eliza’s mind, but which unless thus stirred up floated only with the sereneness of resignation, as a sort of perpetual under- current of the thoughts. Yet though thus strongly agitated within, her countenance betrayed nothing of what she felt. In the course of the afternoon Mrs. Bailey’s travelling- chariot dashed up to the grand entrance of Oaklands, and Eliza was clasped in the arms of her father. He mistook the filial enthusiasm of her embrace for an evidence of com- plete satisfaction and happiness on account of the alliance which she had formed, and whatsoever apprehensions had previously filled his mind on that score were dissipated in a moment. But when Eliza came to regard Captain Lacey attentively, she perceived that he was looking exceedingly ill, and that the smiles which her presence and his own relieved thoughts conjured up beamed upon a countenance that was thin, haggard, and careworn. She comprehended all that he must have felt on her account, — his deep anxiety Gomichbooks (E(0)