The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 254: what you’re looking at

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

CAPTAIN STANLEY 225 farther than she had intended when first setting out. Pres- ently she reached a stile, at which point she halted to survey the undulating landscape that lay beyond, when all of a sudden so strange a figure emerged from behind the hedge that Lady Christina was startled and almost affrighted. This was a tall woman whose emaciated frame was wrapped in the rags of beggary. In reality she was not forty years of age, but she looked at least fifty, so terrible were the ravages which houseless wanderings, care, misery, and privation had made upon her. She was emaciated to such a degree that there seemed to be nought but skin upon her bones; her cheeks had fallen in, her eyes were deeply set in their cavernous sockets, and her hair was grizzled. In respect to garments, if mere rags could be so denominated, they were only just sufficient for the purposes of decency. But there was not only misery expressed in the appearance of this creature; there was also a certain wildness of look which bespoke incipient madness or else a reckless desperation. But there was still in her dark eyes a remnant of the light which had belonged to them in other days, and when, on so suddenly starting up from behind the hedge, she flung her glances on Christina, there was something which appeared so threatening in them that it was no wonder if the young lady felt still more frightened than she even was at first. Christina flung a look around; she was at a considerable distance from the mansion, and no other human being but this horrible woman was within sight. Christina was smitten with the dread of being exposed to the fury of some dangerous lunatic, and though by no means inclined to childish terrors, © yet she could not help wishing that she had not wandered so far from home. It was, however, as much from charitable motives as from this feeling of apprehension that Christina hastily thrust her hand into her pocket to draw forth her purse, and taking thence two or three pieces of silver, she proffered them to the woman. But in so doing she showed that her purse contained gold as well, and on raising her looks toward the wretched stranger’s countenance, her fears were all revived or rather most poignantly enhanced at the manner in which the woman was now surveying her. ‘You belong to that proud mansion,” said the woman, “and you are Lady Christina Vivian. You know not how much both you and your brother are indebted to me for the GOMIiGdoG SS) (S©)