Page:Memoirs James Hardy Vaux.djvu/106

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a respectable looking elderly gentleman, from his tender anxiety, but mixed with some degree of severity, I soon conjectured to be her unhappy father; in which I was not mistaken. The other two immediately called the landlady of the house, by whose assistance they recovered the poor girl from her swoon; which having accomplished, they instantly hurried her down stairs, the old gentleman darting an angry look at me, and left me so stupified with grief and surprise, that I had not power to follow, or notice their proceedings. I soon afterwards heard a coach drive from the door, on which the latter was immediately &hut, and the landlady coming up, informed me of what she had gathered during a short conversation from the parties. It appeared that the young lady had been seen with me the preceding night at the opera-house, by a friend of her family, who knowing of her elopement, had officiously followed US home, and then immediately given information to her father, who applying instantly to Sir William Ford, the Bow-Street magistrate, that gentleman had detached Messrs. Townshend and Carpmeal (two of his principal officers) to assist him in the recovery of his lost child. This they had effected as I have described; the anxiety of her parent not suffering him to defer the business even till the ensuing day. The woman added that on learning from her, the life his daughter had led for some months prior to her acquaintance with me,