I Forbid the Banns! — page 305: what you’re looking at

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

CHAPTER XLI. ON BEING A PERSONAGE. N another week they were in London, and in another fortnight Julian’s prediction had been realized: Bertha had become a Personage in society, Julian had managed to obtain a furnished house within a reasonable distance from the Marble Arch for two months, the owner receiving an honorarium at the rate of one hundred guineas a month, stables extra. | The first gallop they had together in the park made to Julian the gratifying revelation that even two years’ absence is not sufficient to obliterate one from the recollection of all one’s friends. He found himself presenting men and women to Bertha in batches the first time they pulled up under the trees. He had had a wide acquaintance in London before traveling, and he had only to reappear in a recognized haunt to be recognized by many. It is not until a man has been a third season away from London that he is utterly forgotten. These statistics prove that London is not that heartless place which some philosophers assure us it Is. The young women to whom his name had been mentioned by their mothers in previous years as a young man of great possibilities, but to whom he had not. proposed marriage, were now young wives—some of them—and having done very much better for themselves—some of them—were delighted to meet him, and to smile upon his wife, who they believed—some of them—had done so much worse in marrying him than they had done in marrying their hus- 295 (CEORMIELIOOKS (E(0)