The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 81: what you’re looking at

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

ANOTHER INTERVIEW WITH THE KING 09 which I need not further allude being the means adopted by you to silence the scruples of the charming Quakeress. Toward the end of June of the same year, Miss Lightfoot found herself in a way to become a mother; and she accom- panied Lady Stamford to the manor near Aylesbury. By a strange coincidence it happened that Lady Stamford had likewise just discovered that she was pregnant. Some weeks afterward Hannah Lightfoot returned to London, and you saw her nearly every day. Things went on thus until the month of January, 1758, when you appear to have made up your mind to dissolve the connection. You accordingly wrote a long letter to Miss Lightfoot, breaking your intention to her as delicately as you were able. Almost heart-broken, the unhappy lady fled from London, and sought her friend Lady Stamford at the manor. At that period both Miss Lightfoot and Lady Stamford were in daily expectation of becoming mothers. And, as a natural sequence to that simultaneousness of pregnancy which I have before alluded to they were delivered within a few hours of each other. And now comes the tremendous secret whch is contained in the explanatory comments appended in Lady Stamford’s own handwriting, as it appears, to the correspondence which has fallen into my possession. But your Majesty is aware of it all. Yes, your Majesty is aware that Lady Stamford’s child died in a few hours after its birth, and that with the concurrence of her husband Sir William, she adopted Miss Lightfoot’s child as her own.” - ‘“‘ It is true, too true, all too true! ” groaned the unhappy monarch, writhing in his chair, but still maintaining his hand over his countenance. ‘‘Goon—goon. What more do those papers reveal? ”’ “‘ Have they not already proclaimed enough? ” demanded Meagles. “ Or do you wish me to repeat to your Majesty how the substitution of your child by Hannah Lightfoot for the child of Sir William and Lady Stamford was duly com- municated to you, how you approved of the proceeding as the only means of veiling the disgrace of the beauteous Quakeress and sparing her the crowning ignominy of expul- sion from her sect, and how Sir William and Lady Stamford brought up the child as their own, adopted him as their heir, and left him all their property? Does your Majesty wish me to enter into such details as these? And does your GOmicsdoo “eS mn