The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 280: what you’re looking at

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

CHAPTER XxXI RESPECTABILITY THE scene now shifts to a very elegant suburban residence on Brixton Hill. It was a villa, not very spacious, but genteel in its exterior, commodious and beautifully ap- pointed internally. It stood in the midst of a well laid out garden, in which there were hothouses and conservatories, while the occupation of a groom who was engaged in wash- ing a handsome carriage of the description known as a clarence seemed to proclaim that the occupant of the villa must be in very easy circumstances. And such was the case, for this beautiful suburban residence was the one to which Madame Angelique had retired about a week back, after having broken up her establishment in one of the fashionable quarters of London. It was about the hour of noon, and Madame Angelique was reclining upon the sofa in a beautifully furnished par- lour, with a number of French newspapers and fashion- books scattered around her. She was dressed in an elegant déshabillé, which however would have rather become a young lady of between twenty and thirty than an elderly dame of about fifty. But then she wore it with such an exquisite Parisian coquetry, and the beautiful French cap so completely concealed the false front which Madame Angelique wore, the rouge and the pearl-powder, too, were so artistically laid on, the brilliant set of teeth looked so perfectly natural, and did such infinite credit to the Parisian dentist who made them, that Madame Angelique might certainly have passed herself off as being ten years younger than she really was. A loud knock at the door presently made her lay aside the French fashion-book which she was reading at the 253 CORnNICLOOOKS (C(O)