I Forbid the Banns! — page 265: what you’re looking at

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

ON SHORT SIGHT AND OTHER INFIRMITIES. 255 Before he had gone across the lawn, however, he found that he was not likely to be allowed to finish his promenade alone by the side of Bertha. If the ladies turned their backs upon her and fled from her, the men—except such as had wives present—showed no desire to do the same. Julian found himself greeted by a number of men whom he had known before setting out on his travels. They greeted him with something of enthusiasm, and asked to be pre- sented to Mrs. Charlton. Perhaps they laid a trifle too great emphasis upon the J/rs. Charlton.» They also were amateurs. Td Julian, without hesitation, presented at least-h men—two of them the best par/zs in the county and then he felt an arm on his own. - He found that it was the arm of a many v ORF intimate of school and college friends. “Come away from the madding rove whispered the man, ‘“‘and tell me all that you have seen and all that you cae learned by your travels—you can do it inside ten min- utes, I can swear.’’ ‘Give me fifteen,’’ said Julian, suffering himself to be led away by his friend. He found that his friend did not want to hear about his travels, but was only anxious to tell Julian about his own. Julian was not quite so absorbed in his friend’s narrative as to be incapable of noticing the effect which had been pro- duced upon the ladies of the groups on the lawn when they perceived, by the aid of their spectacles, that Bertha was the center of a group of men—some of them the most angled- for men inthe county. Eligible men are no more plentiful in Brackenshire than they are in any other county in Eng- land; consequently they are prized as they deserve to be. They have latterly shown a remarkable inclination to look for wives outside their own county, and this wildness is being made the subject of constant reproach by the matrons of Cormicloooks (E©)