The Works of George W. M. Reynolds — page 57: what you’re looking at

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

40 THE COURT OF LONDON like pigmies, and looking like a pedestal on which the arch of heaven itself rested. Yet little recked Emma for that sublime and wondrous panorama thus stretching itself out before her eyes. She was now full of anxiety how to obtain admission back into the villa. To scale the wall at the risk of being observed from the casements of the dwelling, or by the gardener him- self, was impossible. ‘To go boldly around to the front door and knock for admittance, as if she were returning from an early ramble, would be to create an immediate suspicion as to how she could have gone forth. For a few minutes she felt completely bewildered, when, to her joy, she observed the gardener coming forth with a wheelbarrow full of rubbish from the door in the boundary-wall. Watching till he was at a convenient distance, she glided through that doorway into the grounds, and then boldly traversed them with the air of one who was merely taking an early walk. No one however, perceived her, and thus, without en- countering a soul, did she reénter the villa, ascend the back staircase, and steal her way, unobserved, to her sister Agatha’s chamber. Meanwhile Julia had been suffering indescribable torture on account of Emma’s prolonged absence. But fortunately Agatha had slept on the whole time, and she was only now awakened by the return of Emma into the chamber. Slip- ping off her cloak and bonnet, Emma made a sign for Julia not to enter upon any disagreeable communication to Agatha, it being absolutely necessary that she should experience no annoyance or shock to impede her progress toward a speedy convalescence. It was not, therefore, until Agatha fell into a sound slumber-again, which she did in about half an hour, that Emma had an opportunity of explaining to Juha all that had occurred during her brief but momentous absence. And now conjecture was again rife with the two girls to account for the prolonged disappearance of Mrs. Ranger and the laundress, and the circumstance of the child having been dropped in the garden. But we need not dwell upon the many hypotheses which imma and Julia conjured up to account for those things which it was quite impossible could be thus accounted for by any surmise on their part. Hour after hour passed. They made themselves some breakfast, and they performed CORNICLIOOKS (E(0) im