The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 96: what you’re looking at

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

CHAPTER X THE MILLINER AND HER MASTER THE scene once more shifts to Mrs. Brace’s elegantly furnished little parlour at her house in Pall Mall; and be- tween ten and eleven o’clock at night we shall find her seated in that room where she had received in her time so many distinguished visitors. She was not alone upon the present occasion. Mr. Freder- ick Dray, metamorphosed into a fine gentleman, was her companion; and having just returned from a gambling-house where he had been losing a considerable sum of money, he was in a particularly bad humour. Moreover, the man had felt unwell for the last two or three days, and as it was the first time in all his life that he had suffered from indisposition, he was not very patient under the influence of the disagree- able sensations which he experienced. | The milliner herself was much altered. Her countenance was haggard and careworn, and the rouge upon her cheeks only rendered her aspect the more ghastly. Her eyes, once so fine, were sunken and hollow; their lustre had become dimmed, and the flesh was blue around them. Her figure had lost much of its glorious embonpoint; and although still stout, it no longer wore the appearance of plumpness and firmness which formerly constituted the voluptuous richness of her contours. There were still the same elegant neatness in her apparel, still the same coquetry in her Parisian cap; but the effect was no longer what it was wont to be, and the most careless eye could now perceive that those aids of an exquisite toilet which had recently set off the milliner’s charms to the best advantage were now called into requisition to conceal the decay of her fading beauty. The hue of her lips was less vivid, and although the teeth 74 Gomichboo ¢ <S Eo