The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 82: what you’re looking at

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

THE SUPPER EATER 63 Such was the revelation made to Prince Albert and the Grand Duke of Maxe-Stolburg-Quotha. Both were exceed- ingly irate, but Frumpenhausen promised never to offend again, and it was found more convenient to bestow pardon upon him than by expulsion from his ducal master’s service, to send him adrift in the world to tell the tale of the domino and the suppers. On their way back to Mivart’s, Count Frumpenhausen and Baron Farthenless were exceedingly dejected, miserable, and surly,—a state of mind which was by no means mitigated by listening to the complacent terms in which the others eulogized the succulent repast of which they had so luxuriously partaken. We have said the Duke of Marchmont was a guest at the palace on this occasion, but he departed long before the dénouement of the adventure of the hungry Germans. Indeed, it was scarcely midnight when the duke stole away from the midst of the brilliant assembly, and, entering his carriage, ordered the coachman to drive to the beginning of the street in which Madame Angelique’s establishment was situated. His Grace was aware that on this particular evening Christina Ashton was to be carried off, and he was deeply anxious to know the result. It was, however, no part of the infamous Frenchwoman’s plan to take Christina to her own house; she feared that it might be too dan- gerous, and hence the concealment of her features with a thick veil, to avoid recognition on the part of the young damsel at any future time. She had accordingly made an arrangement with the keeper of another den of infamy, but one which was on a far less splendid scale than her own, to receive Christina, to keep her in close custody, and to have her ruin effected, so that under the imperious pressure of circumstances she might resign herself to a life of pollu- tion, and thereby be prevented from returning to those friends to whom she might tell the tale of her abduction. Such was the abominable conspiracy devised for the accom- plishment of Christina’s ruin, but the reader has seen how providentially it was frustrated by the collision of the two vehicles. The Duke of Marchmont, alighting from his carriage, and dismissing it, proceeded to Madame Angelique’s house. He found the Frenchwoman in her elegantly furnished apart- ment, plunged into a dejection from which not even frequent CORAICLOO© ‘S (CO)