I Forbid the Banns! — page 50: what you’re looking at

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

40 ‘IT FORBID THE BANNS!” good fun,’ remarked the lady ruefully. ‘* Maybe she found itso. Ididn’t. ‘There sheis up there, here am I where she left metorest. I promised to follow her when I had rested. Sir, I will never follow her. Perhaps if you are going up you would be good enough to tell her that her aunt—I am her aunt, Mrs. Hardy is my name—will return to the hotel and waitforherthere. ‘Tell herto take great care how she comes back. It must be awful coming back. Maybe you would look after her, sir. She is a fatherless and motherless girl, and I am her aunt.”’ This list of the girl’s misfortunes was plainly stated by . the lady to inspire the pity of the stranger. ‘The plan was a distinct success. He looked at the aunt and had a profound pity for the niece. He promised to convey the message, and he agreed to iook after the niece. He had looked after her—a long way—for the next twenty minutes. Then he found himself by her side at the summit of the ladder. And now he was seated in the stern of a boat, steering for the anchor light of the Carnarvon Castle, with the aunt on one side of him and the niece on the other, a confused mass of trunks and portmanteaus lying in the bows. On the way to the steamer Mrs. Hardy explained to Charlton that she and her niece were on their way to - England, and that her niece was prolonging the voyage by visiting every place at which a steamer put in. They had been to Calcutta, Ceylon, Bombay, Natal, Cape Town, and lastly St. Helena. They had remained a week at almost every port. ‘That was too short a time for most places, but too long for St. Helena, and they had agreed that it would be well to take their passages in the first steamer that might call at the island on the way to England. She had just concluded the account of their itinerary EOMMIGlLYOOlKS (eC)