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The Bedford-Row Conspiracy by William Makepeace Thackeray
page 3 of 68 (04%)
number One hundred and something, Bedford Row.

It will be necessary to explain to the reader that John was no other
than John Perkins, Esquire, of the Middle Temple, barrister-at-law,
and that Miss Lucy was the daughter of the late Captain Gorgon, and
Marianne Biggs, his wife. The Captain being of noble connections,
younger son of a baronet, cousin to Lord X----, and related to the
Y---- family, had angered all his relatives by marrying a very silly
pretty young woman, who kept a ladies'-school at Canterbury. She
had six hundred pounds to her fortune, which the Captain laid out in
the purchase of a sweet travelling-carriage and dressing-case for
himself; and going abroad with his lady, spent several years in the
principal prisons of Europe, in one of which he died. His wife and
daughter were meantime supported by the contributions of Mrs. Jemima
Biggs, who still kept the ladies'-school.

At last a dear old relative--such a one as one reads of in
romances--died and left seven thousand pounds apiece to the two
sisters, whereupon the elder gave up schooling and retired to
London; and the younger managed to live with some comfort and
decency at Brussels, upon two hundred and ten pounds per annum.
Mrs. Gorgon never touched a shilling of her capital, for the very
good reason that it was placed entirely out of her reach; so that
when she died, her daughter found herself in possession of a sum of
money that is not always to be met with in this world.

Her aunt the baronet's lady, and her aunt the ex-schoolmistress,
both wrote very pressing invitations to her, and she resided with
each for six months after her arrival in England. Now, for a second
time, she had come to Mrs. Biggs, Caroline Place, Mecklenburgh
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