Presents the reader with some passages which could not conveniently be told before, and, without all doubt, have been for a long time impatiently expected
The spirits of Lady Mellasin had for several months been kept up by the wicked agents she had employed in the management of the worst cause that ever was taken in hand: those subtle and most infamous wretches, in order to draw fresh supplies of money from that unhappy woman, had still found means to elude and baffle all the endeavours of Mr. Goodman's honest lawyer to bring the manner to a fair trial.
But, at last, all their diabolical inventions, their evasions, their subterfuges, failing, and the day appointed which they knew must infallibly bring the whole dark mystery of iniquity to light, when all their perjuries must be explored, and themselves exposed to the just punishment of such flagitious crimes, not one of them had courage to stand the dreadful test, nor face that awful tribunal they had so greatly abused.
Yet so cruel were they, even to the very woman, all the remains of whose shattered fortune they had shared among them, as not to give her the least warning of her fate; nor, till the morning which she was made to hope would decide every thing in her favour, did she know she was undone, deserted, and left alone to bear the brunt of all the offended laws inflict on forgery.
What words can represent the horror, the confusion, of her guilty mind, when neither the person who drew up the pretended will, nor neither of those two who had set their names as witnesses, appearing, she sent in search of them, and found they were all removed from their habitations, and fled no one could inform her where.
Scarce had she the time to make her escape out of the court, before word was given to an officer to take her into custody: not daring to go home, nor knowing to whom she could have recourse for shelter in this exigence, she ran, like one distracted, through the streets, till she came to one of the gates of St. James's Park; where, meeting with a porter, she sent him to her lodgings, to order her daughter Flora and Mrs. Prinks to come that instant to her.
Mrs. Prinks immediately obeyed the summons, but Miss Flora had the audacity to desire to be excused, being then dressing to go on a business which, indeed, she then imagined was of much more consequence to herself than any thing relating to her mother could possibly be.
After this dissolute and unfortunate creature was left by Mr. Trueworth, in the manner described in the third volume of this history, she gave a loose to agonies which only those who have felt the same can be capable of conceiving.
Her shrieks, and the request Mr. Trueworth had made on his going out, brought up the woman of the house herself, to administer what relief was in her power to a lady who seemed to stand in so much need of it.