A Fair Fraud — page 178: what you’re looking at

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

CHAPTER XII Just as she was thinking of going to bed that evening Marion was surprised to hear heavy footsteps toiling up the narrow attic staircase that led to her rooms. These rooms of hers, although quite at the top of the house—under the roof, in fact—were approached by a separ- ate staircase, and were quite shut off from the other and larger attics where the servants slept. The two little rooms which opened out of one another seemed, as she often told her aunt, as though they had been built expressly for her ; they were prettily furnished, and she was very fond of her cosy nest under the tiles. Scarcely anyone ever entered her rooms save: herself and the under housemaid, whose duty it was to wait upon her and to clean them. Marion was sure it was not the under house- maid—-who was slight and active—who was now tramping up the ladder-like staircase. In some wonder as to who her visitor could be, she opened the door, and there, to her surprise, stood her aunt, purple in the face and pantiny from the exertion of her climb. } 167 CONN a ClOOO <S (GO)