The Mysteries of London; or, Revelations of the British Metropolis — page 298: what you’re looking at

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

996 MYSTERIES which was also so pre-eminent, that it made Irish House a perfect and really marvellous establish- ment, These rooms had no particular destination, but, nevertheless, they had been completely ten- anted since the arrival of Rio Santo in England, and the reports current in the fashionable world excited a vague niystery as to the uses to which they were applied. As far as regards that portion of Irish House which was usually uninhabited, and of which we are now speaking; we sbeuld profoundly astound our readers, were we to place before their eyes even one half the hypothesis which the young ladies and the matrons of the fashionable world ventured to pour forth, as to the wonderful doings in those empty rooms. This room did not, in any way, bear out the pictures drawn by the vivid imaginations of the -ladies above mentioned. There were but the por- trait of one lady in it: and there would not have been room to hang the remaining twenty-three, for the chamber was of small dimensions, and two large looking-glasses, fixed against the dark velvet drapery with which the room was covered, occupi- ed nearly its whele width. The portrait was suspended between two win- dows, whose thick and ample curtains descended to the floor. Opposite the portrait was a bed, behind the curtains of whica was heard the op- pressed breathing of a human being struggling” against fever. | it A lamp was burning on the table, covered with | a shade, and its veiled light was contending with ~ the first rays of morning, which were beginainiey a 4, 4 i yy y "i ° scomicbooks:com | Bethy (eS e s Oint <