The Works of George W. M. Reynolds — page 281: what you’re looking at

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

264 REYNOLDS’ WORKS establishment which the poor mother held in such horror, and to which dire necessity alone had from the very first constrained her to send her child. MHenrietta this time observed not that gathering gloom on her mother’s features: but, enthusiastic in her resolve to testify her fervid gratitude to Signora Vivaldi, she sat down at the table and penned a letter, the contents of which flowed with as genuine a sin- cerity from her heart as the tears which she had ere now shed welled forth from the same holy fount of feeling. This pleasing task being accomplished, she put on a simple but pretty bonnet and a neat shawl, selected from the things ere now reclaimed from the pawnbroker’s, and having kissed her mother and brother, was about to trip with light step away upon her mission of gratitude. ‘Would you not lke to take little Charley with you?” asked Mrs. Leyden, concealing beneath a smile the sort of gloomy presentiment which had arisen in her mind at this resolve of her daughter to pay a last visit to the opera. “Yes, to be sure,’’ exclaimed the now happy girl; but then the next moment, as a sudden thought struck her, she said, ‘““ No, i cannot. I am going to speak to the ballet- master, and must not take any one behind the scenes with me. Now, my sweet Charley, do not look disappointed, because I shall be back soon, and then, you know, we are all going away together to some nicer place.”’ Having thus affectionately spoken to her brother, and having again kissed him, Henrietta sallied forth. The landlady of the house, with characteristic inquisitiveness, endeavoured to engage her in a gossip as she was passing out of the front door, for the woman was very anxious to know who the old gentleman was that with a sort of en- chanter’s wand had appeared to bring so much sudden happiness into the previously wretched chamber inhabited by the Leyden family. But Henrietta would not pause to gratify the landlady’s curiosity, and turning out of the dark, gloomy court, she gained the street. Upon being left alone with Charley, Mrs. Leyden relapsed suddenly into a mournful mood. Was it that the sudden presence of so much happiness, by unnaturally exciting her spirits, had led to a proportionate reaction, and that her mind, enfeebled by illness, was unable long to endure a joy so great that it engendered a mistrustfulness of itself? CONNIE NO KS (E(@) m