Penny Blood Serial Fiction — page 174: what you’re looking at

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

LADY BESS’S HISTORY 157 manner in respect to my thoughts for the future. The boundary between honesty and dishonesty was completely passed over, and I began to consider that it was my destiny to follow the career upon which I had entered. I found that my servant Rosa was a good-hearted woman, who had taken a very great liking to me, but she was evidently at a loss to understand the sources of my income, or who or what I was. I never had a soul to see me, elther male or female, and my habits were such that she could not possibly suspect any impropriety on my part as a woman. It must indeed have appeared singular to her that I should live thus secluded, months passing without a single soul visiting ‘the cottage. At length, as my funds grew low, I perceived the necessity of replenishing them, but I likewise saw how dangerous it was for a woman to prosecute the course on which I had entered. A female may be described so much more easily than one of the other sex, and moreover ladies might resist the predatory demands of a woman, when they would yield at once in terror to those of a man. Thus was it that a train of reflection one day led to the idea of assum- ing male apparel. But this could not be done without admitting Rosa into my confidence. Gently and gradually did I break to her the circumstances of my position, so cautiously and warily indeed that she was not shocked by any suddenness of disclosure. To be brief, I found that I had not done wrong to admit her as my confidante, and my design was soon carried out. Under pretence of requiring a masquerade garb, I procured a complete suit of male apparel from a tailor, and shortly after I fetched it away, I made my first experiment in that disguise. But upon this part of my history I will not dwell at unnecessary length. If I have launched into so many details in respect to my criminal career, it is only because when first entering on my history, I resolved to speak without reserve, and this very avowal of my iniquities constitutes no mean portion of the heavy punishment I deserve. ‘“ Months passed away, and by those means to which I need not more particularly allude I obtained sufficient to live upon. One day, when dressed in my female garb, I was passing through a street at the West End, having some purchases to make, and I encountered Sir John Marston. He was startled and surprised at beholding me, looked con- CONNIE DOOKS (C(O)