The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 102: what you’re looking at

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

THE MYSTERIES OF THE COURT. 89 nr rr attractive abcut this young ballet-dancor: it was ppsrrieeet lenngers ot Shey posnod bee hy. Shere wee only when at « second look the observer noticed | an unstudied elegance and a natural grace which her more attentively, the gradually forced | made her seem at those meer sweetly captivat- iteelf upon his mind that he avery pretty and | ing in spite of herself. =~ interesting creature. For her’s was a beauty the| This young girl was named Henrietta Leyden. sense of which stole imperceptibly upon one,—a | She had been a ballet-dancer only during the presen’ besuty half the charm of which lay in its own re- | season; and her salary was « mere pi tiring modesty. Yet nothing could be sweeter or | shillings a-week! But wherefore did she thus stand purer than the look which beamed forth from those | apart from the rest? Why did she shrink from the mild blue eyes, when she raised them, and before | libertine looks that were fixed upon her? Because they were bashfully veiled again by their thick dark. that young girl was still virtuous—still uncon- fringes :—nothing could be more softly melancholy | taminated, even in the atmosphere of contamina- or touchingty plaintive than the expression which | tion. Yet, heaven knows she was not virtuous for grew upon that young girl’s countenance, when all | want of temptation—but because she was superior her thoughts, being withdrawn from the gay and to it. She had bean well brought up: her family busy scene arcand her, were concentrated on some , had seen better days: but misfortunes had suddenly source of affliction that lay deep in her soul. “Her entered their house, ravaging it like an army; for figure was slight and delicate, but beautifully sym- death bad taken away her father at a moment when metrical ; and in her very shrinking from the roile | his affairs required the wimost attention to reese and insolent looks that were flung upon her by the ' them trom ruin—and thus that ruin had come. ae WO. 12.—THIRD SERIES. i nee oe ee comicbooks.com