His Grace — page 129: what you’re looking at

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

HIS GRACE. 123 secondary importance, Mr. Gascoigne was not, so far as I am aware, distressed by any further speeches of the above uncomplimentary description. He was extremely polite, affable and discursive: no doubt he wished to make himself popular, and to a certain extent he may have been successful. I suppose he could not, for the life of him, have helped being condescending ; otherwise he might easily have secured more friends than his money and his position had already earned for him. He was not, however, so bumptious on that occasion as was his wont: for he was palpably nervous. I saw him mount the big staid roan horse which had been brought to the door for him, I saw his groom indulge in a grin and a wink when his back was turned, but I also saw in a very few minutes that he had been taught to ride. If Hurstbourne expected him to go over his horse’s head, Hurstbourne was likely to be disap- pointed. But Hurstbourne was not looking at his rival, he was helping Miss St. George into the saddle, and for the next quarter of an hour or more he had no eyes for anybody except Miss St. George. That young lady sat well and handled her spirited little mare as if she knew what she was about: of course it remained to be seen whether she was really a horsewoman of Nora’s class. Not, to be sure, that that mattered very much: still, I was, I confess, mean enough to hope that she had not all Nora’s pluck. It was disgraceful of me to admit such feelings into my mind; but I did admit them, and, as I have humbly owned to them, perhaps one or two very kind and forgiving people will refrain from con- demning a frail fellow-mortal. And now occurred an unexpected and (as I was subse- Gomichboo cS (eo)