The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 214: what you’re looking at

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

192 THE COURT OF LONDON figure is yet characterized by elegance and grace. She says that she is only twenty-one, and she may be believed, but she looks two or three years older. Her teeth and eyes are incomparable; her complexion is of dazzling whiteness, but with a rich bloom upon the cheeks. The auburn of her hair is the richest that ever I beheld, and the outline of her features is classic. Her manners, though tinged with rustic bashfulness, are nevertheless ladylike and prepossessing, and require but the smallest amount of proper tutoring to render them elegant. Altogether she answers the description you gave me some time ago.” Miss Bathurst was overjoyed, and immediately concluded a bargain with Mrs. Gale, who hastened back to Soho Square, and with some ready excuse for the proceeding, took Clara Stanley at once to Stratton Street; so that the young lady issued from the vile woman’s house not only as pure as she had entered it, but likewise without entertaining the re- motest suspicion of the den of infamy where she had thus passed two hours on this memorable day. It was still early in the afternoon when Clara was thus introduced to Miss Bathurst, and Mrs. Gale was at once dismissed with the stipulated sum in her pocket. Miss Bathurst has already been described to the reader as a lady midway between forty and fifty, retaining the traces of creat beauty; and as her manners were elegant, her address fascinating, and her hypocrisy consummate, she was at once enabled to make a very favourable impression upon Clara. The young lady repeated to her new friend all that she had previously told Mrs. Gale, and in a short half-hour Miss Bathurst was fully acquainted with every point and particu- lar of Clara’s history so far as the fair narratrix was herself acquainted with it. ‘ Now,” said Miss Bathurst, ‘you are a young lady of intelligence and of a strong mind, and you are for the instant in a most embarrassing position. It happens that I have it in my power — at least, I hope so — to place you in a career of brilliancy and splendour. So far from dreading poverty, you shall be surrounded with riches. So far from fearing that the sister and the aunt whom you love may become houseless and friendless, you shall have it in your power to maintain them in comfort and ease. Innocent though you are, you cannot be unconscious of the circum- (Cl) nn) GDoOo S (CO in