The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 103: what you’re looking at

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

— an an only resource wherewith to earn bread for her mother and a httle brother, poor Henrietta had been forced to turn her accomplishment in dancing to the best possible account; and thus was it that she be- eame one of the juniors in the ballet-corps. Those fashionable loungers who gazed upon her | happy with libertine looks, but who did not stop to speak to her now, had nearly all on former occasions | gled whispered words of temptation in her ear, and had been repulsed. They therefore x her as a silly Jittle prude, not good- enough to be worth any particular trouble: for it is not the re- tiring and modest beauty which steals into the | souls of such men—it is the daszsling brilliancy or bold of charms which thrust themselves forward to be admired and courted, that exercise the greatest influence on the i for we will not say the hearte—of fashionable rakes and ars tocratic libertines. But presently an old man, at least four or five years past sixty,—yet dressed in tho very height of fashion, and made up with all the artifices of the toilet 20 as to give as youthful an appearance as possible to his lean and abrivelled form—accosted Henrietta Leyden. He wore a wig as punctiliously surled as any that may be seen in a hairdreseer’s shop in the Burlington Arcade: the set of false teeth fixed in his mouth, had cost five hundred guineas: his eye-brows were stained with a black dye; and he affected to walk with a jaunty and debonnair gait, just as if all the fires of youth were still animating his frame and the vigour of health giving elasticity tohislimbs. But this old man was one of the richest nobles of the day; and it would be difficult throughout the ranks of a profligate aris- tocragy, to discover one more profligate than Lord Everton. ‘“‘ How is it, pretty Miss Leyden,” said the old nobleman, smiling as blandiy and affably as ho could through the agency of his false teeth, “ that you are standing thus apart? Every yoting lady has her friend, or admirer, or gallant, to converse with save yourself.” “My lord,” replied Henrietta, “I do not seek such companionship as that to which your lordship has alluded :”—and the blood mantled upon the girl’s cheeks so as even to be visible through the rouge that was upon them; for this was not the BO ee been suljected to the persecutions of Lord Everton. “Come, my dear, you must not be so short and ebrupt in your answers to me. I seek to be your | the friend. Why can't you hold up that pretty face of your’s, and let me see you smile P” “Smile!” ejaculated the girl, with an accent of bitterness: then as if vexed at having allowed her- self to betray for even an instant the feeling that was dominant in her heart, she turned abraptly away. “Stop one moment, Miss Leyden! I wish to speak to you,” said the old lord. “It is serious— very serious indeed.” Henrietta, surprised at these words, did turn back: and now her deep blue eyes were fixed with ® sort of curiosity upon Lord Everton’s counte- nance. “I wish I could see you happy,” he said, affecting a deep sympathy for the young creature. “‘ Look around you—what gaicty is upon every (eee — counting ! shall quit the stage, and become s lady—nay, more, I will even settle upon you an annuity, so ener i grant bial -iherrven Rabe this I will do for you, Henrictta Leyden; and I came hither this night for the purpose of making you these proposals.” The young girl actually shivered from head to foot as she felt herself gradually yielding to the in- fluence of these temptatians. Wealth was sud- denly placed within her reach: the dismal word poverty need never ring in her ears again, nor the spectral shade of want rise in its ghastly leanness and lankness before her affrighted view. She thought of the wretched garret from which she had come forth a few hours back to the brilliant scene of the Opera, and to which she must return when her part was played amidst the blase of hght upon garret where she had left her re- vered and idolised mother stretched upon the bed of sickness, destitute of every comfort, wanting even many of the bare neces.aries of life, and where also her poor little brother whom she loved so fondly and who loved her eo affectionately in return, was clothed in rags and had naught save dry bread to eat! Of all this she thought—and it was no wonder if the young girl suddenly found herself sorely tempted. Ohi if that old lord had appeared before her in the light of a generous benefactor, proffering her succour with even the minutest por- tion of that colossal wealth which heglavished upon profligacies and dissipations, but which she could turn to s0 many useful and noble — if it were thus as a disinterested friend that he had addressed her, ashe could have fallen down at his feet —she could, have worshipped him—she cgald have qa — CONE DOOkKS een te i Qe Oe EE COMM