A Fair Fraud — page 277: what you’re looking at

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

266 A Fair Fraud and rosy paper, and flowery chintzes and Chip- pendale furniture, with old blue and white china and silver knick-knacks in every available corner of it—as pretty a drawing-room indeed as cou:d be found within two miles of Hyde Park corner. The person she addressed was sitting quietly on a sofa with a novel in her hands, but it would be untrue to say that she h:id the very slightest idea what the navel was about, although she conscientiously kept her eyes riveted upon its open pages. ‘I never saw anyLody to equal you, Hetty!’ cried Mrg Naylor, impatiently. ‘I rea'ly don’t believe you are half so excited as I am!’ Hester Bradford looked up with a smile, Her golden hair was as bright as ever, her eyes as blue and her skin as lovely in its delicate colouring, yet somehow she was very much altered during these last few months, It was in the expression of her face that the change lay. There was a softening and sober- ing of her whole appearance. The lessons of life had not been thrown away upon her, and the unsatisfactory days of ‘Hester Lane's’ earlier career had been succeeded by the en- tire moral revolution of Hester Bradford’s nature. Her mother’s death and her own long illness had affected her powerfully--from the Jatter she had now almost entirely recovered, GORMGIOO oO G' Q)