The Mysteries of the Court of London by Pauline Clarendon — page 30: what you’re looking at

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

4 THE BEAUTIFUL SISTERS 27 namely, that it would be impossible to refuse the slight hospitality which was solicited. The elder Miss Clarendon accordingly sat down, an example which Pauline immediately followed; and the gentleman, understanding the tacit assent thus conveyed, threw off his cloak and took a chair. The brief pause afforded by these little arrangements gave him an opportunity of thinking of some excuse that might account for his extraordinary intru- sion and enlist the sympathies of the young ladies at the same time; for he was suddenly seized with the desire to cultivate the acquaintance of the two most charming creatures he had ever encountered in the course of his life. On their side, they could not help observing that their strange visitor was not only of very handsome appearance, but likewise of polished manners, and that there was about him an air of refinement far superior to anything they had before met with in their short experience of the world. In fact, the sisters were both prepossessed in his favour, and when he resumed the conversation, they were fully prepared — though involuntarily — to accept any reasonable excuse which he might offer for his conduct. “ Feeling that the most ample explanation is due to you, ladies,” he said, “ I must begin by stating that I am a gentle- man of some property, and that my nameis Harley. It may be that I was foolishly good-natured; it may also be that I was deceived by a villain; but certain it is that I gave my security to a large amount on behalf of a person who called himself my friend, and this individual has absconded. Young ladies of your age, and dwelling in a genteel seclusion, — if I may be allowed to form an opinion of your habits from the favourable impression you have made upon me, — are not likely to be well acquainted with the proceedings of that dreadful pestilence called law, but you may probably have heard or read enough to understand that a person in my position becomes liable to have his freedom most dis- gracefully molested by certain human sharks known as bailiffs. Such is my present state; and it was in flying from those malignant enemies that I was audacious enough to seek refuge in the first house whose friendly door stood open.” This statement was delivered in a tone of semi-jocularity COMnnicloool|Ks CO