The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 397: what you’re looking at

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

DOCTOR DUPONT’S ESTABLISHMENT =. 371 ‘‘O God, have mercy upon me!”’ cried Mrs. Owen; and not observing the imperious signal which Doctor Dupont now suddenly made for her to withdraw, she sprang forward, threw herself upon her knees at the feet of her two lost and ruined children, and with wild looks and outstretched arms, shrieked forth, ‘‘ Pardon me, pardon me, my deeply injured daughters! Forgive your miserable, miserable mother! ” Strange was the effect now suddenly produced upon Agatha and Julia. The expression of frenzied horror slowly faded away from their features, their eyes lost the maniac fires which they had ere now flashed forth, and the increasing placidity of their looks indicated a slowly returning tran- quillity of mind. The doctor, who had been upon the point of ordering Mrs. Owen forth from the room, or even dragging her thence if she would not leave of her own accord, now watched with the deepest interest and attention this new phase in his two young patients’ conduct, while Mary looked on with heightening hope in her bosom. Nor was even the stout female custodian indifferent to what was passing, and Mrs. Owen still remained upon her knees, while her two deeply wronged daughters were looking down upon her with a gradually increasing clearness and lucidity of gaze. There was something touchingly poetic and beautifully statuesque in the attitude which each of the two sisters took as thus, side by side and hand in hand, they stood with their eyes bent down on their parent’s upturned countenance. And for more than a minute did this strange scene last, amidst a profound silence. The attitudes and looks of Agatha and. Julia were identical; they were exactly the same, and it seemed as if it were but one mind influencing the two ani- mated forms. At length Agatha slowly raised her disengaged hand to her brow, to which she pressed it as if to collect or steady the thoughts that were agitating confusedly in her brain; and. precisely at the same moment, and with the same slow ges- ture, did Julia raise also the hand which she had disengaged, and place it in a like manner to her white forehead. Doctor Dupont flung a quick glance upon Mary and the female keeper, as if to intimate that this was the crisis upon which everything depended. And a crisis indeed it was, but one the turn of which was little foreseen by any individual present. | (C(O) nn) GDOOo <Si