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.

THE DOOMED WOMAN 85 “ Oh, forgive me, forgive me, my dear young man, if I said anything to offend you. I did not mean it. But there are moments when I know not what I say or do; my brain seems to be on fire, it is in a dreadful whirl. But tell me, tell me, that you will yet save me! Think of the horrors of such a death. My God! I shall go wild if I dare contemplate it. Mr. Loftus, you must save me —Icannotdie. If they come to take me, I will scratch, I will scream, I will fly at the ruffian men like a tiger-cat. Oh, I will do a mischief! ” and she laughed with a horrible frenzy. “Do you not think that I had better go and fetch the clergyman to you once more?’’ asked Loftus, cruelly be- wildered by this awful scene. ‘“No, he is of no use to me now,” was the wretched woman’s quick response. Then she paused, slowly bent down her eyes, and appeared to reflect profoundly. ‘‘ Many, many years ago,” she at length said, — and now she spoke in a strangely altered voice, a voice in which there was a low and mournful pathos, — “‘ a sweet little girl was gamboling and skipping about in a beautiful garden full of fruits and flowers. Let us contemplate that dear innocent child when she was about five or six years old. What blushing roses were upon her cheeks, what lily purity upon her brow! Her dark brown hair flowed in myriads of clusters over her white neck and shoulders. What joy danced in her sunny eyes, what silver peals of mirth rolled forth from her red lips, and how glanc- ingly did her tiny feet trip over the lawn, along the gravel walks, and amidst the parterres of flowers! And that little child, so gay, so innocent, so good, was a fond mother’s darling. The mother was a widow, and this child was her treasure and her comfort. Behold that dear, kind mother coming forth from the picturesque cottage to which the garden belongs, and how that child bounds toward her! The butterfly wandering from flower to flower is not more happy than this young child. The melody of birds in the trees of that garden is not more delicious than the music of the child’s mirth as its mother receives it with open arms. Oh, what a blissful scene, — innocence in its own appropriate paradise! Mr. Loftus, it is a picture of my own earliest years I am giving you. That child was myself.” As she thus spoke, Mrs. Ranger raised her eyes in a melan- choly, oh, so melancholy a manner toward Jocelyn Loftus, (C(O) nn) GDoOo <Si