A Fair Fraud — page 209: what you’re looking at

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

198 A Fair Fraud ‘Only this evening!’ repeated Mrs Drury, with a laugh. ‘Why, my dear Mrs Lane, they are both young, and they have their whole lives before them ! ’ And how was Mrs Lane to explain to her that if Kenneth did not propose to Hester again before she left Crookthorpe he might very probably hear something which would indis- pose him ever to propose to her again? She retreated once more into platitudes and generalities. Young people were so foolish, they had such Quixotic ideas, they were so charmingly sentimental! The mere mention of money was enough to scare a sensitive girl into coldness and distrust. Hetty had had no idea that her suitor was a rich man, or she would never, never have consented to come to Crookthorpe. She herself had scarcely realised his wealth until she came here. Mrs Drury took most of this rigmarole in good faith, for . she both liked and believed in Mrs Lane, but some of it made her a little sceptical. She could hardly understand, for instance, how two ladies, moving in good society in London, could be wholly ignorant of the fact that the han¢tsome guardsman was reckoned to be somewhat of a catch in the matrimonial market. For a long time the two mothers continued to discuss the situation with unabated ardour and interest. Lunch had been a melancholy function, at econniclaoa “Sit