I Forbid the Banns! — page 209: what you’re looking at

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

ON VARIETY IN LACE. . 199 “I think your gown beyond comparison the most charming I have ever seen,’’ he replied to Bertha. ‘‘The lace is Mech- lin, is. it not? I always admired it infinitely more than Spanish or even Venetian.’’ ‘“If Iam in the way, just say so,’’ remarked Eric. ‘One looks for freedom from conventional types in Vene- tian lace,’’ said Julian, ‘‘but one rarely gets it. Now in Mechlin—I refer of course only to the best examples—one finds unlimited imagination; it is nearly always unrestrained, and yet it is invariably graceful and appropriate. ”’ ‘‘I am so pleased that you like this,’’ said Bertha. ‘‘I felt quite sure of it myself; but my education is, alas, only beginning.’’ ‘“We have chests full of various types in some of the ’ said Julian. ‘‘Pray remember that they 9 rooms upstairs, are all yours.’’ Mr. Eric Vicars felt that he was being quietly shunted, even by the young woman whom he had taught to sit ona ‘pony and to crack a stock whip. What a hand that fellow who was now talking like a girl on lace and gowns and rubbish of that sort, would make at governing a buck-jumper! What a fool of himself and of everybody within range of him he would make if he were to try to crack a stock whip! Rid- ing buck-jumpers and cracking stock whips—these were the points that showed what a man was made of. But when these were supplemented by a knowledge of branding which was practically inexhaustible, and by an acquaintance with the most approved methods of shearing sheep, and by an unerr- ing judgment as to the treatment of rams at certain seasons, they put a man on a level with the ancient gods. Long ago Bertha Lancaster had shown an appreciation of such splendid intellectual endowments — ram selecting is clearly an endowment, though stock whip cracking may be in some measure an acquirement; but since her father had been foolish enough to engage for her at Sydney quite an (E(0) (CONNIELIOOKS