His Grace — page 181: what you’re looking at

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

ff1S GRACE. 175 naturally hoped that hers would not be; still I almost believe that the first-love is the sole genuine one, and, in any case, there was little likelihood of her making a speedy recovery. Well, I had a sufficiency of prosaic matters to claim my attention during the intervals of poetic inspiration. I suppose the details of Hurtsbourne’s gradual pro- gregs towards insolvency would not interest the reader as much as they interested me; so I will not dwell upon them. But I may mention that scarcely a day’s post came in without bringing demands upon me which I could not meet without imprudence, and that, as the days grew into weeks, it became more and more evident to me that he had plunged out of his depth. I wrote to him again and again, asking him plainly at last whether he wished to sink, since there could be no doubt that his swimming powers must ere long be exhausted. Sometimes he answered, and sometimes he didn’t ; he might have spared himself the trouble of answering at all, for such replies as he vouchsafed to me were not even remotely to the purpose. “You ought never to have let him out of your sight,” said Nora—I was so worried at times that she per- ceived my distress, and made me tell her all. about it ; women can always manage to do that with us, and f wish with all my heart that they couldn’t! “You ought never to have let him out of your sight. You know what he is, and that he can’t help doing what the people about him do, unless there is somebody at hand to put a salutary check upon him. As far as that goes, he knows it himself. I think, if you were a true friend, you would follow him up to London, Phil; you can’t doubt that he would be delighted to welcome you.” a al oYoye) ¢om cS (E(0)