The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 211: what you’re looking at

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

CHAPTER XXI THE WORKING MAN’S WIFE AND CHILDREN AND now we have another scene to relate, which occurred contemporaneously with those described in the two preceding chapters, and to which we must direct attention ere we can return to the police office and resume the adventures of Rose Foster. | For while she was standing in the dock, soon after twelve, on this memorable day, and while the Amazon was exhibiting the magnanimous heroism of her character to the Prince of Wales, a sad and pitiable spectacle might have been seen in that garret where the wife and children of Melmoth, the working man, were huddling together. But the working man himself was not there. The letter which he had written, and which was in the same style as that penned by Meagles, had been duly received by the un- happy woman, to whose heart it had appeared to carry the blight of death. For now did she feel herself widowed, now did she look upon her children as fatherless; and in addition to this appalling misery was the crushing idea that he, the man whom she loved so fondly, he the husband of herself and the father of her children, that he was plunged into the bitterest, deepest despair. Oh, as that poor woman pressed her babe to her breast and cast around her eyes upon the other three children who sat near looking up into her worn countenance as if seeking for consolation there, but finding all a hopeless blank or else the sombre gloom of despair, as she thus threw her hot and _ tearless eyes around and at a glance embraced the unfortu- nate beings who were left dependent solely upon her, it seemed as if her heart-strings would snap suddenly and she must sink down beneath the intolerable load of her misfortune. 181 (Gt ®@) AG 6)(0)()