I Forbid the Banns! — page 255: what you’re looking at

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

CHAPTER XXXV. ON THE SMILE AND THE FROWN. HEN Julian Charlton was alone he began to laugh at the idea of the founder of the carnisolists preaching a sermon upon the iniquity of yielding to what he called fads. Mr. Hardy was, he felt, in the position of the merchant who declared that honesty was the best policy, having tried the opposite and found that it did not answer. But when his laugh was over he began to feel that his visitor had not proved himself by his conversation to be quite as great a fool as Julian fancied he was, knowing his connection with the carnisolists. He recollected that he himself had spoken to Bertha pretty much as Mr. Hardy had spoken to him, on the subject of marriage as a legal contract. Had the past three weeks caused him to think differently | on the subject, he asked himself. Had he really come to feel that Bertha was quite right? He had talked to Mr. Hardy of lights—had he himself acted according to his lights in bringing Bertha down to his house, and in keeping her there? One of those twinges of which Mr. Hardy had also spoken made him writhe for amoment, nor did its effects wholly pass away when he recollected what his visitor had said regarding the possibility of his feeling ill at ease when he might chance to:see Bertha surrounded by attractive men who would be charmed with her, and who might probably seek to charm her in return. He had known several attractive men, and the result of recalling them was not to reassure him. He had known several attractive men who were dis- 245 (EOPMIELYOOlKS (EC)