His Grace — page 261: what you’re looking at

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

HIS GRACE. 208 “Oh, well,” she said, after I had broken the news to her as considerately as I could, and had spoken of the - proposed reductions in her son’s establishment as not only commendable but really indispensable, “ that isn’t so bad, you know;; it isn’t ruin and it isn’t bankruptcy. We shall go abroad for a year or two and amuse our- selves very well in an economical way until things come round, and I am sure Mr. Martyn will do his best for us during our absence.. Do you think of letting Hurst- borne, Arthur? There ought to be no trouble about finding a tenant.” Hurstbourne embraced her, swearing that no man had ever had so good a mother and that few mothers had ever been afflicted with such a fool of ason. I suppose that, in a certain sense, the poor woman had been a good mother to him; at all events, she had been a most affectionate one, and I must say that she be- haved on this occasion far better than I had dared to anticipate. While they were exchanging endearing epithets and trying to persuade one another that it was really rather fun than otherwise to descend once more into obscurity from those sun-illumined heights upon which their sojourn had been so brief, I slipped out of the room. I knew that there was something else to be said, something which could hardly be made light of, and which had better not be alluded to in the presence of a third person ; so I escaped to my private den, where I sat about making preparations for the winding up and resigning of my stewardship. I had been wrestling for rather more than half an hour with the intricacies of unmanageable figures when a tremendous tap at the door heralded the entrance of Lady Charles. I had felt quite sure that Gomichoo (elo) im