Penny Blood Serial Fiction — page 121: what you’re looking at

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

104 REYNOLDS’ WORKS We were conducted up a magnificent staircase, to a bed- chamber, where a lady lay ill in the couch. She was very beautiful, though pale with sickness; she appeared to be about thirty-three years oi age. There were two other ladies with her, much younger than herself, one being but little past twenty, and the other nineteen. I do not think they were sisters, for although they were both very beautiful, there was no family resemblance between them. Nor do I think they were any relation to the lady who was ill, — at - least so far as I could judge by the way in which they ad- dressed her. I must however observe that neither the invalid lady nor these two younger ones called each other by any name the whole time that Frank and I were there, this reserve being doubtless a necessary but melancholy pre- caution to prevent us from obtaining any clue as to who they were. ‘The sick lady embraced me and Frank with the utmost tenderness, and wept over us. She contemplated us with a look which I can never forget, a look of mournful fondness and sorrowing love, a look which, young though I was, never- theless made me think that there must be some secret tie connecting my brother and myself with this lady. After remaining upwards of an hour with her, she bade us a most affectionate farewell. She gave me some advice as to my future conduct, and hinted that I was shortly to be removed from Mrs. Burnaby’s and placed at school, but she assured me that I had friends in the world who would ever be watch- ful over my interests. Again and again did she press me and Frank to her bosom, and although I have no doubt she exerted all her energies to restrain her emotions as much as possible, yet she could not prevent them from finding an issue. Mrs. Burnaby and the housekeeper conducted us back to the carriage, and the latter female kissed us both most kindly at parting. I should observe that the two young ladies already mentioned had likewise lav- ished affectionate endearments upon us. The handsome carriage took us back to the village, where we entered the hired vehicle and were borne home to the cottage. “On the following day preparations were commenced toward fitting me out for a boarding-school. I grieved sadly when I found that I was to be separated from my dearly beloved brother, but Mrs. Burnaby consoled me with the Gomicbooks: co