The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 325: what you’re looking at

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

CHAPTER XXVI THE BOUDOIR On thus retiring to her elegant boudoir, Venetia neither rang immediately for her maid to help her to lay aside her apparel, nor did she commence her night toilet alone; but flinging herself on the sofa near the fire, she gave way to her reflections. A deep melancholy crept over her, and tears even stole forth upon her long dark lashes; then, as if it were a positive luxury to escape from the hollowness, the falsity, and the demoralization of a court life even for a few minutes, and to indulge in the unrestrained thought which the solitude of her own chamber permitted, she murmured, audibly, “‘ Yes, let me weep, let me weep! ” And Venetia wept, not violently, like the rains pouring forth from an angry heaven to beat down the fairest flowers and crush the sweetest buds of promise, but softly and gently, like the April showers descending with a genial influence to give freshness to nature’s expanding verdure in garden, grove, and field. Thus did Venetia’s tears fer- tilize, as it were, her memory and her heart for the time being; and all the tenderest recollections that the former cherished, and all the sweetest feelings of woman’s nature which the latter harboured, were revived into freshness and wooed into bloom by the gentle shower that fell from the deep blue heaven of her eyes. Presently she rose from the sofa, passed behind a low screen which partitioned off one corner of the elegantly furnished boudoir, and opened a splendid bureau or cabinet made of ebony inlaid with mother-of-pearl. Thence she took forth her jewel-box; but her eyes shone not with pleasure at the view of the flashing gems which the box 33 CORNICE OOO (CG) am