I Forbid the Banns! — page 231: what you’re looking at

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

ON THE WAR PATH. | 221 and I, dearest, What did you say this morning? The slave track from the interior to the coast—ah, my beloved, if you had had my experience of observing that converg- ence of cliques which goes by the name of society, you would say that it is the track of the débutante to the altar that is strewn with the skeletons of her dead loves. I wonder sometimes when I see a lovely young matron sitting in her carriage among hey children if, now and again, she does not hear the shriek of some of those past loves of hers, who in battle were slain and unburied remain inglorious on the plain. Pah! This is the sentiment of the third-class novelist, who invariably treats his readers to a chapter on the skeleton in the cupboard. ‘The skeleto on the war path’ is the heading to my chapter.”’ | “But those ghosts—those ghosts!” said Bertha. “There are no ghosts, my dear,” laughed Julian. “You have read the vision of the prophet—the most marvelous thing in literature, I believe it to be. It refers to the mat- ter about which we have been talking. When the young woman gets married to the man of her parents’ choice— perhaps of her own choice—for sometimes the two chance to coincide—there is a great moving among dry bones. They rise up and get married too, and their wives sit pleas- antly among their children in the carriage. So civilization triumphs over savagery. The Society for Psychical Re- search has proved that there never yet was a ghost whose origin could not be traced to the kitchen. Your cook, not your chaplain, is the person to whom you must apply if you want your unquiet spirits exorcised.” “And you, Julian, have perceived all these years how society has made a mockery of God’s gift of love, and yet you are not enthusiastic in your desire to help me bring about a better state of things?”’ ‘Oh, cursed sprite!” said Julian, putting his horse toa canter. ‘“‘ Come, dearest, if we do not have acanter before (CORNIELOOOKS (E(0)