The Works of George W. M. Reynolds — page 202: what you’re looking at

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

~ LADY BESS 185 that I have just sold to old Patch were picked up on that very same road last night. Ha! ha! ha! it was one of the finest adventures you ever heard of in the whole course of your life. I was galloping out of London along the Seven Sisters Road, when I met a young fellow — never mind his name, although he told it to me — who was wandering about in a benighted state. So I offered him a bed at my house.’’ ‘Where do you live, then?’ asked Chiffin, who, with his arm resting on the table and his head bent forward, was listening attentively to the Amazon’s tale. “Never mind where [I live,”’ she responded, with an arch smile. ‘‘ Suffice it for you to know that I pretended for the nonce to live in that neighbourhood, and invited the young- ster home. He accepted the invitation, and got up behind me on my horse. I could perceive that when he held me around the waist he discovered that I was not exactly of the sex I at first seemed, for I felt him trembling like an aspen leaf. How I laughed in my sleeve! But our ride did not continue very far, for in a few minutes we reached a convenient part of the road, where it is quite lonely, and there I threw my gentleman off and made him surrender up those trinkets which I have just handed over to Solomon.”’ At this moment Lady Bess, who had been talking in a careless, offhand manner, without addressing herself par- ticularly either to the Cannibal or Madge, suddenly raised her eyes and was perfectly struck by the singular look which that woman was fixing upon her. Lady Bess could not possibly penetrate the meaning of that look, it was so strange, so sinister, so unfathomable. “ Ah, then it was a good night’s work for you? ”’ exclaimed Madge, instantaneously resuming her wonted aspect, and endeavouring to appear as if she had not been excited by any extraordinary emotion. “ Yes, a tolerably good night’s work,” answered the female highwayman, not choosing to question the woman — at least on that occasion — as to the cause of the strangeness of her manner a moment back. ‘‘ Besides this gold,” she went on to say, leisurely gathering up the money she had received from Patch, and which she had until now left lying upon the table with a careless indifference concerning it, “I got a well-filled purse from my deluded companion of that double ride on horseback. Poor fellow, he was fright- CONNIELDOOKS (CO)