The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 46: what you’re looking at

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

i Ee a THE BEAUTIFUL SISTERS 25 redundancy of her auburn hair, seemed to crown its glossy surface as with a glory. And Octavia knew that she was beautiful; her gait, her demeanour, her carriage, all denoted a consciousness that she was the object of admiration. Nor less was Pauline gifted with the same vanity, but it displayed itself less, or, rather, was more subdued by the bashfulness attendant on a tenderer age. The sisters were much attached to each other, and loved their father with the sincerest affection. Though a disap- pointed, crushed, and dispirited man, he had behaved kindly toward them, and they fully comprehended all the sacrifices he had made to rear them genteelly. They accordingly repaid him with the most solicitous attention to all his wants and wishes; but we must mention, as a good trait in their character, that they never sought to gratify their vanity by extravagance in dress. They moreover devoted so much care to the domestic affairs, and managed with so much economy, that no regular servant was kept; the occasional attendance of a charwoman was all that was needed to assist them in maintaining the little dwelling in the best possible order. We have enabled our readers to form a tolerably correct idea of the two young ladies who are destined to play no inconsiderable part in our narrative, of which we now resume the continuous thread. It was verging toward eleven o’clock on the evening of Mr. Page’s adventures, when a tradesman from the neigh- bourhood knocked at the door of the cottage inhabited by the Clarendon family, and Octavia answered the summons. The man left some article which had been ordered, and, having apologized for calling so late, took his departure. The young lady then tripped lightly down the gravel walk of the little garden in order to lock the front gate, and at that instant a gentleman in a cloak, who had just alighted from a hackney-coach precisely opposite, hurried up to Miss Clarendon, saying, “‘ Permit me to step in and rest myself for a few minutes.”’ Had she paused for a single instant to reflect upon this request, she would have at once seen that it was of so extraor- dinary a nature, coming as it did from a perfect stranger and at such a time of night, that nothing but a prompt refusal (C(O) anil Doo 6S (C(O)