The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 51: what you’re looking at

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

32 REYNOLDS’ WORKS tyrannically disposed sister. When I took my leave, a little before eleven in the evening, I received no invitation to repeat my visit; for as Mrs. Maxwell gave no such en- couragement, her grovelling old husband dared not of his own accord, while delicacy as well as terrorism forbade Louisa from doing that whence her relatives abstained.” Here Edgar Beverley paused for a few minutes, while Christian Ashton awaited with an increasing impatience for the continuation of the narrative. He longed to ask one or two questions, on account of certain vague and strange suspicions which had gradually been engendered in his mind and which were now floating there, but he restrained his curiosity, resolving thus to curb it until Edgar Bey- erley’s tale should be completed. “The next time that I beheld Louisa,” he resumed, “she was walking with her sister and Mr. Maxwell. I made a movement as if to stop and converse with them, but they passed on, and I saw that it was Mrs. Maxwell who was the cause of my being treated with a coldness amounting to actual discourtesy. Not coldness nor dis- courtesy on sweet Louisa’s part, for she gave me one modest look of tenderness, in silent response to the quick glance of affection which I flung upon her. Weeks passed away, and though I frequently — indeed, nearly every day, met Louisa, she was always accompanied by her relatives, and they never stopped; but there was a secret voice within my soul, telling me that I was very far from being indifferent to the object of my own growing love, and I was continu- ously racking my brain for some opportunity of seeing her alone or of corresponding with her. ‘“ At length I managed to bribe a servant-maid in the Maxwells’ household, and she conveyed a letter to Louisa. It contained the avowal of my passion, — that avowal which I had already so often made by my looks, but which was now for the first time revealed in language. Through the medium of the friendly domestic, I received an answer, couched in the most modest and delicate terms, but giving me to understand that my love was reciprocated. “Frequent letters were now exchanged between us; and at length — also through the medium of the friendly maid — a secret interview was arranged. This took place in the garden at the back of the house at an early hour in the CORMICLIOO KES (E(0)