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Rosamond Fane; Or, the Prisoners of St. James's, by M. and C. Lee
Rosamond Fane Or the Prisoners of St James's by M and C Lee Author:Mary Lee General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1870 Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million book... more »s for free. Excerpt: CHAPTER II. St. James's. ' With a new fashion when Christmas is drawing on, On a new journey to London, straight we must all be gone, And leave none to keep house, but our new porter John.' Old And Young Courtier. ; EARLY a week after the events related in our last chapter, at about four o'clock on a chilly, foggy afternoon, a heavily laden travelling coach, accompanied by several horsemen, rolled up to the old gatehouse of St. James's Palace. It was a clumsy, lumbering vehicle enough, certainly ; but so roomy withal, that the six inmates were by no means as closely packed as might be imagined. Indeed they could easily have made room for two additional passengers. The party inside the coach consisted of Mistress Carewe, her two little girls, her niece, Rosamond Fane, and two women-servants. Colonel Carewe and Maurice were among the riders, and therefore, in Rosamond's eyes, much to be envied. The journey had been very long and tedious; for, in the seventeenth cenThe Journey to London. 7 tury, an expedition from Hampshire to London was a matter of days, not hours ; and the travellers were weary and exhausted in no small degree. Mistress Carewe, it is true, kept the look of careless good- humour, that was rarely absent from her pleasant, and still very pretty face; but then she had a way of beguiling the time by forgetting her fatigue in an occasional little doze, a feat which the rest of the party somehow could not manage to accomplish. Old Nurse Bridget, perhaps, might not have objected to follow her lady's example, had not the respect which she considered due to the presence of her mistre...« less