A Fair Fraud — page 267: what you’re looking at

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

CHAPTER XX Hester Braprorp, to give her her right name, had a very bad time of it during the miserable months that elapsed after her father’s tragic death. She and her mother had gone back to London on leaving Crookthorpe Hall, and had settled themselves down again into lodging life. The lodgings were probably no better and no worse than such London lodgings are wont to be, but they were very uncomfortable. To begin with, they were decidedly second-rate, and they were poky and dirty and badly fur- nished; the cooking was only a shade less detestable than the waiting—both, in fact, were execrable. The ‘sham’ maid had disappeared from the scenes, and Hester waited upon her mother, who still struegled to keep up appear- ances and to present a smiling front to their few and far between visitors. But when they were alone together Mrs Bradford gave her daughter a very rough time. She reproached and reviled her un- ceasingly, upbraiding her for her folly, and 256 GORMGIOO oO G' Q)