His Grace — page 148: what you’re looking at

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

142 HIS GRACE. any woman in the world, save her niece; but I should have been infinitely more clever than I have any pre- tension to be if I had arrived at that conclusion with- out feminine aid. How was I to guess that she hated Hurstbourne as only a deeply religious lady can hate, or that his coronet had none of the charms in her eyes which coronets of that exalted description almost in- variably possess for her sex? As little could I divine that she was anxious both to wash her hands of respon- sibility and to obtain a plausible excuse for declaring that I was insanely desirous of placing those straw- berry-leaves upon Nora’s brow. We all went early to bed; for, although Mr. Gas- coigne’s cigars were excellent, his personal attractions were scarcely strong enough to detain two weary men in the smoking-room for more than half an hour, and Hurstbourne was too sleepy to go on sparring with him, sleep having been murdered in my case by the distress- ing reflections with which that old woman had provided me, and which indeed kept me tossing to and fro half the night through. It does not seem probable that Miss St. George’s slumbers were seriously interfered with by any out- spoken remonstrances which may have reached her from the same quarter ; though it is likely enough that she was remonstrated with before her aunt wished her -good-night, and when the next morning reunited our congenial party at the breakfast-table I thought I could perceive in the young lady’s face and manner symptoms of something of the kind having taken place. But per- haps, like many better persons than herself, she was apt to be a little silent and sulky at breakfast time. Possibly she may have been neither the one nor the Gomichboo .“S (E(0) m