The Works of George W. M. Reynolds — page 56: what you’re looking at

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

THE DRAMA OF A NIGHT 39 thus indicated, and arousing the linen-draper from his slumbers, he returned with him in about twenty minutes to the police station. There the tradesman at once identi- fied Miss Owen, and the magistrate, expressing his satisfac- tion accordingly, proceeded to enter the minutes of the whole proceeding in the police book. Emma availed herself of the opportunity of the commissary’s attention being thus engaged to slip a couple of pieces of gold into the sergeant’s hand as an inducement for him to observe a profound silence relative to the singular adventure whereof she had just proved the heroine. Thanking the magistrate for his courtesy toward her, Emma then took her departure, in company with the oblig- ing linen-draper, who insisted upon escorting her back to the villa. On their way thither, the wily girl invented some excuse to account for the dilemma in which she had been involved, and as she concluded her readily invented tale with a request that her companion would send three of his most exquisite pieces of Swiss silk to the villa next day, he did not think it worth while to make any comment on the young lady’s representations or criticize them at all closely. When within a short distance of the villa, she took her leave of him, thanking him for his kindness and promising to obtain for him the exclusive custom of the princess during her stay at Geneva. The tradesman, overjoyed at an incident which promised such advantageous results, sped home again without a single regret at having been called up from his warm bed at such an hour. It was now four o’clock in the morning, for Emma’s absence had lasted exactly one hour and a half. It was quite light, and the bosom of the crescent lake reflected the pure azure of the heavens. Still the hillsides in the vicinage of the lake and the farther off ascents cf mountains were veiled in the mists of morning, so that vineyards, hamlets, villas, and all the enchanting scenery belonging to that delightful region were clothed, as it were, in a gauzy dimness. But in the distance, far, far above those fleecy vapours, far far above the mountain-mists, towered the Alpine peaks, shadowed forth in the horizon like magnificent skeletons crowned with their diadems of eternal snow. And high above them all arose Mont Blanc, a giant amidst giants, a colossus making even the surrounding colossal heights seem Gomiicbooks (C(O) im