A Fair Fraud — page 20: what you’re looking at

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

A Fair Fraud 9 interesting to Mrs Drury, but, naturally enough, they were not so interesting to Marion. Yet from fifteen to twenty Marion had spent many hours of her daily life in toiling through these long, printed columns. Her life was certainly rather a monotonous one. If she had no cares, neither had she many pleasures. With the best and kindliest intentions, Mr and Mrs Drury forgot that a girl in her teens cannot lead the life of a middle-aged woman and be happy. They honestly believed that Marion was an ex- tremely lucky girl, and could not possibly ~ have a want unfulfilled. She was neatly and prettily dressed ; she ate three perfectly-cooked meals a day (without counting afternoon tea) ; she took a daily drive in a comfortable barouche or brougham, according to the weather, drawn by two handsome high-stepping carriage horses, and with a coachman and footman upon the box. What more could the heart of a young woman desire? It is true that when there was company to dinner or staying in the house, Marion did not usually dine at table, unless, indeed, some guest happened to be taken ill or to fail in any other way, when she was sum- marily bidden to fill the vacant place of the defaulter—an incident which had only occurred twice during the course of the last two years. But then she could not possibly complain of f Goo oO C' Q)