The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 60: what you’re looking at

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

CHAPTER’ IV THE CONTENTS OF THE DESK How uncertain are the affairs of this life! The mutations from weal to woe are as often of lightning rapidity as of gradual stealthy movement, and swift as the changes of the magic lantern may the scene shift from the brilliantly lighted saloon where music fills the perfumed atmosphere, to the chamber of death where the sounds of weeping prevail. Thus was it at the ducal mansion of Oaklands. At the very instant that soft melody was flowing upon the ears in one apartment, and cards were being played in another, the sable wing of the Destroyer was unfolding itself above that high, antique roof; the music was to cease suddenly in con- sternation, the victim’s last card was played! It was long past the hour of midnight. Captain Lacey was stretched in a sumptuous couch, plunged in that last sleep which paralysis often brings, and from which there is to be no awaking in this world. Eliza knelt by the side of that couch, with her father’s hand pressed to her lips. She was weeping, not loudly and bitterly, but in that low, continuous manner which perhaps indicates a deeper and more concen- trated anguish of the soul. The duke stood near her, and fre- quently did he bend down to whisper a few lowly uttered but tender and earnest words in her ear, imparting such solace as in existing circumstances could be given. Doctor Rodney was near the head of the bed, watching with an ominous countenance the evidences of the soul’s approaching. transi- tion from its mortal tenement into the regions of immortality. The old housekeeper — summoned to officiate as a nurse, though the patient was indeed well-nigh beyond all human ministrations — was likewise there. Every possible assist- ance had been rendered, every available means adopted to 41 GomMmicbooks (@) (E(@)