The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 57: what you’re looking at

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

38 REYNOLDS’ WORKS Louisa was sitting with her old brother-in-law in the drawing- room, and he appeared, from what I could gather, to have been instructed to keep a watch over her movements. Moreover, the day was a rainy one, and there was no pre- text for Louisa to issue forth. The maid undertook to deliver my note, and I returned to the barracks, wondering what this sudden journey on Mrs. Maxwell’s part could mean, but connecting it with my own love-affair. On reach- ing the barracks, I strolled into the mess-room, where four or five of my brother officers were in conversation with a gentleman in plain clothes. This gentleman was an officer in the Guards, and had come down to Brighton on the pre- vious day for a short trip. ‘‘ At the moment I entered, he was relating an anucliie which speedily became vitally interesting to me. ‘I was up just now at the railway-station,’ he said, ‘ to make some inquiry relative to a lost carpet-bag; and while I was loun- ging there, waiting to see a train go off, I fell in with an old flame of mine. I knew her intimately some nine or ten years ago; she was a lovely creature then, she is a splendidly handsome woman still. She passed from my hands into the keeping of a rich old baronet. Stop a moment, and I shall remember his name.’ He reflected for a few instants, and then suddenly recalling to mind the name which he sought, he mentioned that of my own uncle. My brother officers laughingly informed him that he was thus speaking in the presence of the nephew of the old baronet whom he had just mentioned, and he, in a similar laughing mood, ex- claimed, ‘ Well, I am sure that Mr. Beverley, if he happens to know this lady, will admire his uncle’s taste. Let me see: she married afterward, and turned quite steady, I be- lieve. Who was it that she married? Ah, I recollect! an old fellow with years enough to fit him to be her grand- father, but with some little property, and so she became Mrs. Maxwell.’ ‘‘T should here observe that my love for Louisa had been kept altogether a secret from my brother officers, and thus they neither knew how interested nor how pained I was by the startling disclosure that had just reached my ears. My endeavour to laugh and seem unconcerned was but a sickly one; and I sped to my own room, there to give way to my reflections. Could the tale be true? — but dared I doubt } CORMICLIOOKS (E(0)