I Forbid the Banns! — page 166: what you’re looking at

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

CHAPTER XXIV. ON A SHOW. E slept at his club, after going to the Lyceum, and appeared at half-past one the next day at the house in Chelsea. This time he was not greeted with sounds such as came from the thorax of the ex-overseer. She met him in the narrow strip of hall. The moment he saw her his critical glance assured him that she might meet without trepidation the best dressed woman in London. He believed her to be the best dressed woman in London, and, what was nearly as important, the best looking as well. She was radiant as she got into his hansom. When they drove through Sloane Street he said, ‘‘Now we are entering London.’’ She caught his hand as they swept into Knightsbridge and the hansom pulled up suddenly, as three soldiers trotted up on black horses. ‘The soldiers wore helmets with plumes, and sparkling cuirasses. Behind them at some distance she had a vision of a glittering fast-flowing stream—helmets, cuirasses, sabers, all glittering gloriously in the spring sun- light. On either side of the space cleared in the center of the road was an open line of tall soldiers wearing bearskins, rigidly presenting arms. It seemed to Bertha that the lines were continued for about a mile on either hand. ‘‘I quite forgot,’’ said Julian; ‘‘the Emperor of Morocco arrived to-day; he will probably be in the carriage with the prince. Yes, here come the Guards.’’ _ The great glittering stream of soldiers swept up before her eyes: ‘Then the men in the crowd took off their hats, and a great cheer arose as the carriage with four horses and 156 Gomichooks.co