The Works of George W. M. Reynolds — page 342: what you’re looking at

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

THE LADY AND THE PAGE O20 since I first beheld that old tower with the huge clock-face, I had never forgotten it. Still ignorant of what the building was, I inquired of a passer-by; he told me it was St. James’s Palace, and then hurriedly continued his way, thinking that mine was the mere question of curiosity put by a stranger in London. But he left me there, nailed to the spot with astonishment. St. James’s Palace! Was that lady who had embraced me so tenderly, who had wept over me, and who did not answer me when I asked if she were my mother, was she a dweller in that palace? Ifso, must she not be connected with the court? And in my present position was it not prob- able that I should sooner or later fall in with her? Oh, but 1f she were dead? I burst into tears at the thought, and perceiving that I had already become the object of attention on the part of several persons in the street, [ rushed rapidly on. In order to convince myself that I was not mistaken in respect to the identity of St. James’s Palace with that — building to which Mrs. Burnaby had conducted me to see the beautiful lady whose tearful countenance was always upper- most in my mind, I approached the edifice and examined its exterior narrowly. Yes, it was the same; there could be no doubt of it. And it was in that palace, therefore, that on one occasion I had seen her whom I believed to be my mother.”’ Francis Paton again paused through deeply stirred emo- tions, and Juliana, making him bend down toward her, lavished tender caresses upon his exquisitely handsome countenance. She then besought him to proceed, and he continued his narrative in the following manner: ‘A few weeks after the incident I have just mentioned, her Majesty the Queen held a levee at St. James’s Palace. My duties called me thither, and I inwardly hoped that I should-have an opportunity of still further confirming my belief that it was indeed there I had seen the lady of my story. Nor was I disappointed. I recognized the very corridor in which Mrs. Burnaby had stopped to carry on her whispered conversation with the gentleman having the star upon his breast, or, rather, the nobleman, for such, since my acquaint- ance with courtly usages, I had found he must be, the star being the emblem of his aristocratic rank. And the room where I had seen the lady? Yes, I had no trouble in recog- nizing that also, for there were the portraits of the Kings of England, with the crowns upon their heads and the COnNIECOOOKS (SO)