The Man in Possession — page 102: what you’re looking at

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

THE MAN IN POSSESSION. 97 spectacles. But there,” she added resignedly, ‘‘ you . can’t force a person to care for a thing if his mind’s set against it. Perhaps when it’s all his own he'll : be as proud of it as I am myself.” Lady Jocelyn had glided away before this, and Kate, evidently finding it pleasanter to listen to the rhapsodies of an adoring aunt than those of an adoring mother, gently encouraged Miss Judy to tell her as much about her nephew as she wished. She heard a great deal about his youth, his wonderful achievements at college, his generosity, his quixotic enterprises, his views regarding his fellow-man, his democratic tendencies (which his aunt tearfully lamented), the risks he had run at socialistic meetings which he attended only to ‘‘set the men right on main points,” so he said—how he was a favourite in Society, and yet treated that important institution with the coolest indifference —how he was always trying ‘‘ experiments” and putting himself into difficult and uncomfortable situations in order to discover for himself what wrongs were endured by the poor and middle classes, for whom he intended to legislate one day when he had ‘‘collected his own materials.” All this and much more Miss Judy poured out into the ears of a singularly sympathetic listener, and there is no know- ing how much longershe might not have gone on but for the entrance of the gentlemen. Sir Wilfred, slightly unsteady of gait and watery of eye, gazed vacantly round the room in search of his enslaver. However, the ‘‘ banjo” young lady was not to be COMicloe (Sri C(O)