The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 62: what you’re looking at

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

THE CONTENTS OF THE DESK 43 again, in the conduct of her husband, did she perceive much delicate consideration, which her heart, though it could not love, was yet enabled to appreciate. The sight of that desk brought tears to her eyes, and thus weeping before she opened it, she was in a measure relieved as well as strength- ened to address herself to that duty. She opened the desk. The first paper she took out was a tress of her mother’s hair, — that mother who had died in giving her birth, and whom she had never known. She pressed it to her lips; again she wept, and wiping away her tears, proceeded with her task. The next paper she drew forth was addressed to Captain Lacey, in the well-known hand of Bertram, and she knew the letter likewise. It was the one which he had written from Oaklands, bowing to the decision of Eliza’s father that two years were to elapse ere their correspondence should be renewed. She had never seen this letter since the day it arrived, she had never read it but once, yet she now recognized it in a moment, and every line of its contents was imprinted on her memory as if seared there with red-hot iron. Her first impulse was to open and read it again, but she checked herself; the very thought struck her as being an infidelity to her husband. She could not prevent herself from thinking of Bertram, she could not prevent her mind from clinging with a soft, sad, serene affection to his image; she had no power over her own volition. But, on the other hand, she felt that she had no right to do a positive deed which might resuscitate all the frenzy of her regrets for his loss; she had no right to voluntarily seek for the evidences of that love which Heaven had refused to crown with happiness. Therefore, under the influence of this most scrupulous delicacy, Eliza put the letter aside, and again cast her looks into the writing-desk. But, ah, wherefore does she start? What writing is this which next meets her eye? What letter is that which, ad- dressed to her father, she eagerly, greedily, almost frantically snatches up? She examines the direction, she looks at the postmarks; a faintness comes over her, the letter drops from her hand. She snatches.it up again, and again she scrutinizes the postmarks. Thoughts of strange and wild contexture sweep through her mind, — fancies so poignant, so bewildering, so fraught with a solemn wonderment and at the same time a fearful suspense, that they are almost (EOVANIICE ONO KS (EO)