His Grace — page 283: what you’re looking at

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

HIS GRACE. 277 content to note, with rejoicing, that every now and then wealth does, by some happy accident, fall to those who know how to use it. One of the best uses to which it can be put is to distribute it judiciously amongst the many who toil in penury so that the few may be rich, and I must say for my sister and her husband that they do their duty very fairly well in that particular. It is needless to add that Hurstbourne has returned to the turf; but he is now so big a man that he can afford to eschew the book-makers, and he is going in for breeding, which is a far more sportsmanlike and satis- factory phase of the pursuit than purchasing animals in whom it must be difficult to feel anything beyond a pecuniary interest. The Duchess of Hurstbourne and Mrs. Paul Gascoigne are not exactly friends ; but they speak when they meet, and I can answer for it that one of them abstains from saying nasty things about the other behind her back. Only a few days ago I heard a piece of news which had the privilege of amusing me. I always knew that Lady Deverell held the Rector of her parish in high and deserved veneration ; but I never thought that she would display it in so striking a fashion as by the re- moval of him and his numerous olive-branches from the Rectory to Fern Hill. That, however, is actually what she means to do. I had it from her own lips, so that there can be no mistake about it. “T can see by your face,” she remarked candidly, “that you think me an old fool; but perhaps I may not be quite such a fool as I look. Although I am old, I have an iron constitution; I may live for another twenty or even thirty years—it isn’t in the least unlikely—and I don’t enjoy living alone. Mr. Burgess will, at any rate, Gomicboo CSG