The Child of Waterloo, or, The Horrors of the Battle-Field — page 170: what you’re looking at

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

THE CHILD OF WATERLOO. “iv what I want myself, nothing can be easier than to get you what oT want at the same time. One trouble does for both venuti- ully.” Mabel admitted that it did, and Mrs. Jenkins was in such high spirits at the idea of having got hold of somebody who permitted her to bring in a little bill, that she actually invited Mabel to tea on that identical afternoon, which invitation was duly accepted upon the spot. — A little bill is the lodging-house keeper’s delight. They would not give a pin’s head for anybody whu comes in and merely pays the rent—not they. It is the little bill which presents itself to their imagination in glowing colors; and let you take a lodging where you will—always provided you give the landlady a carte blanche regarding a little bill—you will find that the air has had the most beneficial effect upon your appetite; and if you analyze the little bill, you will find that it takes half a pound of butter to butter a roll, two penny worths of milk for two cups of coffee, and a half-quartern loaf to make three slices of toast; a pound of tea for yourself and friend twice, and that mutton-chops are three and sixpence a pound. Reader, if you have any doubts regarding such phenomena, go and try it. We have, and know, from dire experience, the truth of what we assert. But Mabel knew nothing of all this, and she partook of some horrible tea with Mrs. Jenkins, in perfect innocence of heart. Little did she suspect what a combination of circumstances was theo taking place to alter her whole course of life. During the very period when she was at the very extremity of her distresses, Henry Morton and Monsieur Rouselli were holding that most deeply interesting and important conversation, which opened to his perception the whole of her history, and solved some mysteries which, from the long lapse of time they had become so, threatened to remain so to the crack of doom. The very circumstances which, one would have thought, tended at once to unite Mabel to those who loved her so well, and who had so deeply regretted her loss, had in them some phases which delayed so pleasant a consummation. Henry Morton, after bis deeply interesting interview with Monsieur Rouselli, was, as the reader may well suppose, in by far too excited a frame of mind to read newspapers, «nd hence he was in complete ignorance of what had taken place. The fact is, he Jeft London to go down to Morton Hall on the very day that Mabel, with that noble sense of justice which prompted her to do so, came forward to exonerate him who had een her worst enemy from a false charge. | Then followed the coming to town again, and all the deeply interesting surmises connected with the fate of Mabel, so that. the concerns of the world, which the pages of a newspaper might contain, were unknown to him. Little did he dream that those pages would contain something of so deeply and personally interesting a nature to himself. Things, too, will happen most crossly sometimes, and there cannot bea more notable example of their crossness than in a comicbooks. com