His Grace — page 279: what you’re looking at

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

HIS GRACE. 273 ashamed of themselves; he hoped his wife would never have reason to be ashamed of him, and most certainly he should never feel otherwise than proud of her; he was in favor of the parish church of St. George’s, Hanover Square, with a Bishop, a full choir, plenty of flowers and the requisite supply of red cloth. Event- ually a compromise was arrived at which combined seemliness with a total absence of ostentation. Nora was married from our uncle’s house at a small church at Kensington, and only a few near relatives of the contracting parties (the contracting parties hadn’t a large number of near relatives), were invited to the ceremony, which was solemnized, at a ume of year when the fashionable world had deserted London. When it was all over, and the bride and bridegroom had set out for Paris, on their way to the Tyrol, Lady Charles betook herself to Brighton, which had always been a favorite resort of hers, while I journeyed north to Hurstbourne Castle all by myself. The place was to be let for a term of years; but there were still a good many arrangements to be made before it could be prepared for the reception of a tenant, and as I had nothing else to do, I had undertaken to supervise these. To keep Hurstbourne quiet, I had also promised that I would continue for the present to draw my usual salary—a promise which was the more easily made because I had taken care to draw no salary at all for a long time past. It was impossible to make him under- stand that he couldn’t give away what he hadn’t got. I can’t say that the remainder of that summer was a very agreeable or a very satisfactory period tome. Noth- ing so scandalous had ever before been contemplated as the letting of Hurstbourne Castle to some wealthy 18 Eomichoo “S (E(0)