A Fair Fraud — page 143: what you’re looking at

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

132 A Fair Fraud ‘You want money, then, from me?’ ‘A great deal of money, dear child. Your poor old father is very hard up. Look at this disgraceful coat, at these boots, at this old flannel shirt all in rags ’—he opened the front of his overcoat to exhibit to her the garment in question—‘no waistcoat, no collar, no nice thick vest underneath to keep me warm this bitter weather! Ah, Hester, is it right that - you should be clad in silk and broadcloth, as I see you now, whilst your poor father 1s shiver- ing in rags ?’ Blackguard as she knew him to be, the appeal touched her, for she could not deny the facts. ‘But I have no money to give you, father,’ she answered with real regret and compassion in her eyes. ‘God knows, I would give you some if I had it, but we-also are very poor— although my clothes are good, I don’t believe they are paid for.’ She looked down for a moment at her rings, but the stones in them were paste, and she knew them to be value- less. ‘Mother gave you some yesterday, she told me. Surely you can’t be so hard up to-day ?’ ‘One miserable sovereign! which I've already paid away to the woman at the farmhouse where I am lodging.’ ‘You are lodging at the farmhouse ?’ she JOO <S (GO) COMNMUC uu