His Grace — page 75: what you’re looking at

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

HIS GRACE. 69 it from such a woman as Lady Charles Gascoigne, who, even if her position in society were what it is not and never can be, would still be a total stranger to you and your family, is quite another. Of the Duke of Hurst- bourne I will only say that he is a very young man and, by all accounts, a very dissipated and irreligious young man. Whether it is expedient that your sister should become a member of his household I must leave it to your conscience and your common sense to decide. You and she are free agents; you can manage your affairs as may seem best to you; but upon you must fall the responsibility of having placed your sister (if you should so determine) in a thoroughly false posi- tion.” Most people, I daresay, will think that, if Lady Deverell did not express herself over and above cour- teously, she nevertheless had reason on her side ; but I confess that to me her discourtesy was more apparent than her reasonableness. It was absurd to say that Nora was about to become a member of Hurstbourne’s household ;' it was certainly false to speak of him as dissipated and irreligious; while, as for Lady Charles, I really could not see what her social status had to do with either of us. Therefore I gave Lady Deverell to understand. that her views were not mine, and hinted, with all necessary politeness and circumlocution, that I proposed to undertake the conduct of my own busi- ness. Mr. Burgess, so far as I could gather, took no active part in the discussion. Rightly or wrongly, I imagined that Mr. Burgess was a good deal less keen about his second marriage than he had been before the provisions of my mother’s will had been made known to him. \ com tan choo SS) (E(e) m