And here--most striking object of all--on the
site where thousands of lights once sparkled; where sweet sounds of
music made night tuneful till morning dawned; where the beauty and
fashion of London feasted and danced through the summer seasons of a
century--spreads, at this day, an awful wilderness of mud and rubbish;
the deserted dead body of Vauxhall Gardens mouldering in the open air.
On the same day when Captain Wragge completed the last entry in his
Chronicle of Events, a woman appeared at the window of one of the houses
in Vauxhall Walk, and removed from the glass a printed paper which
had been wafered to it announcing that Apartments were to be let. The
apartments consisted of two rooms on the first floor. They had just been
taken for a week certain by two ladies who had paid in advance--those
two ladies being Magdalen and Mrs. Wragge.
As soon as the mistress of the house had left the room, Magdalen walked
to the window, and cautiously looked out from it at the row of buildings
opposite. They were of superior pretensions in size and appearance to
the other houses in the Walk: the date at which they had been erected
was inscribed on one of them, and was stated to be the year 1759.
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