I Forbid the Banns! — page 292: what you’re looking at

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

282 “T FORBID THE BANNS!” better it would be for himself. You see it had almost been proved against him, they assured Bertha, when she had suggested a possible injustice. “ And what became of him?” she inquired. “He died in the workhouse three years afterward,” was the answer. ‘Oh, yes! make no mistake; the fellows of the hunt are really conscientious men. They stand no damn nonsense.” Bertha looked at the speaker who had given her the assurance, There was a light in her eyes that an ordinary man would have been able to interpret without much difh- culty. The conscientious fox-hunter did not show him- self equal to the task of interpretation. He shook his head in a knowing way, and repeated. his last assertion : ‘Yes, we stand no damn nonsense; do we, Charlton ?”’ Without waiting to hear whether Julian confirmed the statement, or suggested the possibility of its being founded upon a misapprehension, Bertha turned her back directly upon the man, and began to talk to another. The other was a humorist as well as a member of a county family ; the twoare not invariably found in intimate association, He was also something of a sad young dog, he believed, and he hoped yet to convince some people that he really was one. Oh, no, he assured Bertha, he was not often so long away from town as he had been. It was a beastly shame, he admitted, to have to remain for another fortnight in a place where so little fun was to be had in the summer. For a fellow who had accustomed himself to town life, and who had also accustomed the people of the town to his presence every season, it was no joke to have to remain in the country for a whole month. In a low voice he expressed his curiosity to know if Bertha had ever heard of the Jollity Theater. ‘“T have never heard of it. What is its specialty ?” Gomichooks (C(O)