I Forbid the Banns! — page 289: what you’re looking at

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

ON THE LOCUST AS A CYMESTIBLE. 279 Nebuchadnezzar was a good-natured man, that he did not order the immediate slaughter of the person who prophesied that he should become the most distinguished vegetarian that the world has ever known. Julian Charlton felt greatly irritated when he reflected that the prediction of Mr. Matthew Hardy had been in some measure realized, so far as he was concerned. The founder of the carnisolists had predicted that Charl- ton would be a man to be pitied when he should see Bertha by the side of a fascinating man, and feel that she was bound to him, Julian Charlton, by no tie. Charlton felt himself to be a man of intelligence, and he believed Mr. Hardy to be an old fool ; consequently he was greatly irritated to be obliged to confess that the prophet Hardy had predicted truly. It should be his own task, Charlton resolved, to prevent the possibility of Mr. Hardy's implied prophecy becoming a ruleof his life. What a frightful-thing it would be if it were to be realized every time he might see Bertha by the side of a fascinating man, he thought. To be sure, fasci- nating men had not been very numerous, so far as Bertha was concerned, otherwise she would have yielded to one of them years before he, Julian, had met her. Here a thought laid acold finger upon him, so to speak. Bertha had known Eric Vicars years before she had mounted that stairway made upthe rocks of St. Helena. Julian knew that there is nothing more fatal than an early attachment, especially when one of the attached persons remains faithful to the early contract. Such monuments of fidelity are very irritating. The man who remains faithful to the woman he has loved in childhood is neither pictur- esque nor useful. Charlton had an idea that the majority of women rather like to have near them the men who remain faithful to them from childhood. A soldier likes to wear his medals CONNIELIOOKS (E(0)