I Forbid the Banns! — page 263: what you’re looking at

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

CHAPTER XXXVI. ON SHORT SIGHT AND OTHER INFIRMITIES. T was, after all, Julian Charlton felt, the best thing that he could do—to walk boldly into the midst of the many groups composed almost exclusively of Brackenshire families. He felt that he had better give them to understand that he had no intention of coming furtively to the garden party or of stealing furtively about the grounds now that he had come. He knew, of course, that Lady Rushton had been describing to all the county the scene in which she had played the part of the virtuous heroine, in the drawing room at the Court; and he knew that the same lady was now talking to such of her friends as she could bring together upon the enormity of Lady Ashenthorpe’s offense in asking to meet respectable and even virtuous people, a young woman who was living in the house with a man to whom she had not been married. The best way to show that he was not afraid of anything that Lady Rushton might say was to face all the people on the lawn. He did so. Of one thing he was certain—there was no woman on the lawn who could compare with Bertha either in respect of beauty or dress. She was infinitely above the most distin- guished of the county guests of Lady Ashenthorpe. This he knew; but he was not quite convinced in his mind that the county ladies would be more disposed to be friendly with Bertha by reason of this fact. They might be disposed to forgive her for taking so remarkable a view of the sanctity of marriage, but it was unlikely that they would condone 253 COMMICLIOOlKS EC) m