His Grace — page 113: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

HIS GRACE. 107 mean, as regarded the existence of a calamity which I was powerless to avert or minimize; of course a much worse time was in store for poor Nora; for whereas she was now ridiculously happy, it was beyond doubt that she would ere long be quite as ridiculously, but not less thoroughly, miserable. And all this be- cause a well-meaning young man with a rather hand- some face hadn’t vanity enough to preserve him from making havoc of the future of a girl to whom he had taken a passing fancy! I feel confident that everyone who reads these lines will excuse me for having snapped viciously at him every now and then, with- out ostensible cause for so doing, and will agree that he ought not, in all conscience, to have looked so sur- prised and hurt when he was snapped at. Well, I daresay he became less dense later on, but whether he did, or whether he didn’t, the inevitable had to occur. One morning there was a lawn meet at the house of a neighboring squire, which was patron- ized by all the great people of the county, together with their wives, their families, their horses, and their car- riages. Amongst the latter I speedily recognized the equipage which had been sent to the station to meet Mr. Paul Gascoigne on the day when he had so thoughtfully put our noses out of joint by ordering postillions ; if I did not at once recognize one of the ladies who sat in it, facing its owner, that was because she was about the last person in the world whom I should have expected to encounter in such a place, or on such an occasion. But Nora, who was close beside me, touched my elbow with her hunting-crop, exclaiming, not without a perceptible inflection of alarm in her voice, “Good gracious, Phil, there’s Lady Deverell!” And, sure CS com ’ = \ EDOO m