His Grace — page 48: what you’re looking at

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

42 HIS GRACE. “T must say,” exclaimed Lady Charles, as we seated ourselves in the carriage, “ that that man’s impudence is past all bearing! Anybody else would have felt ashamed of having schemed to defraud a relation of his rights; but he positively glories in it. Thank Heaaven he hasn’t got the title !—though, I believe, if he could see his way to get it by poisoning you without risk.of detection, he would.” ‘Qh, come, mother,” said Hurstbourne, laughing, “he isn’t so bad as all that, and I daresay he didn’t scheme. But he’s an irritating beggar, I admit, and I don’t think it was very pretty of him to come down and take the shine out of us in this way.” “We'll take the shine out of him before we’ve done with him,” returned Lady Charles in a resolute voice. Lady Charles Gascoigne was a vulgar woman, and the vulgarity of her mind was destined to cause me much subsequent annoyance, because I did not think that the influence. which she exercised over Hurst- bourne was a salutary one; but it is mere justice to her to own that she was kind-hearted, and that, accord- ing to her lights, she had been a good wife and mother. The only daughter of a rich Birmingham merchant, she had cheerfully acquiesced in the squandering of her fortune by her husband, and had as cheerfully sub- mitted to privations in order that her son might be enabled to associate with his equals. I am sure she would have cut off her right hand to serve him; if she did not know how to serve him wisely, perhaps she was not to blame for her incapacity. Later in the evening, when our stately progress had been accom- plished without a hitch, and the tenants had been refreshed, and Hurstbourne had addressed them in a Eomichoo “S (E(@)