The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 340: what you’re looking at

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

en THE MYSTERIES OF THE COURT. 329 tina Ashton—and that under a plank in one of the rooms which he specified at his house in Cambridge Terrace, they would find documents which might be of more or less importance to themselves. In consequence of perusing this letter, Smedley and his wife went to the house in Cambridge Terrace, and possessed themselves of the documents in the hope that their deliverance into the hands of Mr. and Miss Ashton might be productive of a reward. But on inquiring at Mrs. Macaulay’s house, Bar- bara Smedley found that the twins had left—that they had fallen into poverty—and that there was no chance of obtaining. a recompense at_their hands. The Smedleys however kept the papers with tho idea that they would some day prove locrative ; aad these were the documents, together with Joseph Preston's letter, which Lord Clandon had found in the sealed packet upon the person of Barbara Smedley. . The documents were now produced before the No. 94.—FourrH Sxures. Committee; and Christian, be it recollected, had already proclaimed his conviction that those which bore the signature of the deceased Mr. Ashton were really in that gentloman’s handwriting. One document consisted of a will which Mr. Ashton had left in favour of the twins, bequeathing them the sum of six thousand pounds, with Joseph Preston as the guardian and executor. Another document was an affectionate letter to the twins, penned by My. Ashton in case he should die be- fore he considered that they had reached an age when they ought to be made acquainted with all the secrets and mysteries attending their birth. A third document, also written by the deceased Mr. Ashton, contained a full narrative of those secrets and mysteries, in precise accordance with the evidence given by Jonathan Carnabie. The remaining document was Joseph Preston’s letter to tho twins, which the Smedleys had intercepted. This letter informed them that, smitten with re- comicibooks.conm