The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 273: what you’re looking at

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

244 REYNOLDS’ WORKS marked, ‘‘ By the bye, miss, I was going to mention to you that a poor shepherd who inhabits one of these dwellings has his wife exceedingly ill. I have done a great deal for the woman; the doctor has attended her, I have sent her all kinds of necessaries, but she seems in a very low way, and it would perhaps cheer her if you would condescend to look in upon her.”’ “Ah! most willingly shall I perform this duty,” said Isabella. ‘‘ Let us enter the habitation of the invalid.” They entered it accordingly. It was a small cottage, having only two rooms, the inner one of which contained the shepherd’s wife. She was a woman of about forty, pale and emaciated with illness; her husband was absent at his work. Their daughter, a girl of twelve or thirteen, was attending upon her invalid mother. The steward remained in the outer room, while Miss Vincent entered that where the invalid occupied a comfortable bed, thanks to the generosity of Isabella’s humane intendant. When Miss Vincent announced herself, the woman was ereatly affected by what she conceived the honour thus done her, but the young lady gave her to understand that she regarded it merely as a duty which, as the owner of the estate, she was performing. The invalid was in a low and desponding way, as the steward had already intimated, and it was only with a sickly smile that she expressed her thanks for the assurance made by Isabella that she should not be neglected. All of a sudden the woman said to her young daughter, ‘Go into the other room, my dear child; I wish to speak to our kind benefactress alone.”’ The girl obeyed the mandate, and when the door in the partition closed behind her, the invalid woman, raising her- self up in the bed, looked earnestly at Isabella, and said, “T have something, miss, that les heavy on my mind, something I have longed to tell, but have not dared. As yet only my husband knows it, and he bade me keep silent. But you have spoken such kind words to me, and your looks are so sweet and amiable, that I feel I must tell the secret to you.” “What is it?”’ asked Isabella, with the awe-inspiring apprehension that she was about to listen to the revelation of a crime. Gomiicdoc Ss (E()