The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 331: what you’re looking at

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

CHAPTER XXVI MADAME ANGELIQUE’S THREE BILLETS IMMEDIATELY after breakfast on the following morning, Madame Angelique sat down at her writing-desk and penned three notes, which she despatched to as many different ad- dresses. : At about one in the afternoon an old nobleman, having passed through Monsieur Bertin’s house and entered that of the milliner by the mirror-contrived door, found his way to the elegantly appointed boudoir where Madame Angelique was waiting to receive him. He was verging toward his eightieth year. Huis form was completely bowed; the few straggling hairs of his head were of snowy whiteness, his eyes were bleared, his face was one mass of puckerings and wrinkles, he had lost all his teeth, and the outline of his pro- file consisted of a number of sharp angles. He was so infirm that he walked with considerable difficulty; he had a con- tinuous hacking cough, and he mumbled and stammered to a degree that rendered him scarcely intelligible. With the whole of one foot and half the other in the grave, deaf, and in his dotage, this nobleman had nevertheless only just re- turned from an embassy at one of the principal Continental courts after an absence from England of some five or six years. Lord Wenham — for such was his denomination — had been an old patron of Madame Angelique previous to his appointment to the embassy above alluded to. He was therefore well initiated in the mysteries of her household, but the four young ladies whom the private part of her estab- lishment now contained were complete strangers to him. She had heard of his recent return to the British metropolis, and being resolved to make a last penny out of him before 300 | CORMICLIOO KS (E(0)