The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 55: what you’re looking at

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

36 REYNOLDS’ WORKS of a strong inward trouble might have been read. The drawing-room door was thrown open, and a domestic an-. nounced, in a loud voice, ‘* Lord Clandon.”’ The duke greeted his nephew warmly, and there was some- thing in his cordial clasp of the hand which seemed to con- vey a heartfelt gratitude for the generous, frank, and mag- nanimous manner in which Hugh had expressed himself with regard to a marriage which he had in reality so little reason to like. For Lord Clandon, in default of issue, was the heir to the estates and title of Marchmont, and this alliance on the part of his uncle with a young wife only just twenty-one years of age naturally gave every promise that Hugh’s hopes and expectations would be disappointed. ‘Welcome, my dear nephew, to Oaklands,” said the duke. ‘‘ And now permit me at once to present you to one to whom you are anxious to become known.” Eliza had not dared fling even a single glance toward the door when it opened. She rose from her seat, and stood motionless, a wild excitement in her mind, but with all the outward appearance of the unstudied grace of a serene and dignified self-possession. There was confusion in her brain, a veil before her eyes; Sir William Lomax was saying some- thing to her, she knew not what it was. His voice and the voices of all the others in the room seemed like an unin- telligible blending of humming, droning sounds. She heard persons approaching her; then her husband’s voice sald, ‘‘ Eliza, I have pleasure in introducing my nephew, Lord Clandon.”’ All in an instant she became vividly, frightfully, terribly aware of the necessity of exerting her fortitude to the ut- most. And it came, like a wondrous inspiration. She raised her eyes; she beheld before her a fine, tall, hand- some man, really not more than a few months past four and twenty, though looking three or four years older. His hair was of jetty darkness, and wanted the rich gloss and the silky fineness to make it resemble that of the lost Bertram. His features, somewhat largely chiseled, were haughtily handsome, yet with the traces of either fatigue or dissipation in his lineaments. But altogether there was a sufficiency, more than a sufficiency of a family likeness to bring back the image of Bertram most vividly to her mind, even if at the moment any such impulse should have been wanting Gomichbooks (E(0)