The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 63: what you’re looking at

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

44 REYNOLDS’ WORKS ance, my dear young friend, that should circumstances soon transpire to induce me to return to my native land, it shall be my care to place you in a position that will render you independent for the future.”’ Christina was melted to tears by this evidence of gener- osity and good feeling on the part of the Indian lady, and warmly but tremulously she expressed her gratitude. Almost immediately afterward, the princess entered the house, but Christina lingered in the garden to ramble there a little while longer, for the evening was beautiful, and she was in one of those moods when she wished to be alone with her own thoughts. The reader will not be surprised if when thus alone the image of her beloved friend Zoe rose up in her mind, and that by a very natural association, it likewise conjured up Lord Octavian Meredith to her thoughts. It will be remembered that the young maiden had already so far analyzed her feelings as to be unable to repel the conviction that Octavian was not altogether indifferent to her, but she was ever doing her best and striving her hardest to expel his image from her mind. Indeed, she never contemplated it fixedly; the immaculate purity of her soul would not suffer her mental vision to dwell with passionate intentness upon that image under existing circumstances. Yet she could not altogether pre- vent it from often and often floating vaguely in her mind, for with all her innocence, with all her anxiety to martyrize her own feelings when she found them passing into a for- bidden channel, she could not exercise a complete power over her volition. Christina remained in the garden, as we have said, after the princess had quitted it on the evening of which we are writing, and for nearly half an hour she was occupied with her thoughts. Presently — when near that fence which has already been so often mentioned as overlooking a con- tiguous field — she thought she heard a sudden rustling amongst a dense knot of evergreens on one side of the pravel-walk where her delicate feet were treading. For a moment she was startled by the circumstance, but the next instant recovering her self-possession, she conjectured it must have been the rush of a cat, for there was not a suff- cient breeze thus to agitate the foliage. She thought to her- self, as some tale recently told her by the princess sprang up CORNICLIOOKS (E(0)