A Fair Fraud — page 59: what you’re looking at

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

48 A Fair Fraud ‘Two or four is company,’ said Miss Lane, quite frankly, ‘three is none!’ and she pro- ceeded to make herself exceedingly agreeable to Marion, and told her long stories about her travels which appeared to have taken her half over Europe, and about her friends and admirers, who seemed to be numerous; bit the very instant that Kenneth and his father came into the room, Miss Lane took no further notice of the little neglected companion, who found herself then so completely overlooked and ignored that she generally took the earliest opportunity of slipping away unnoticed out of the room, to which she did not return the same evening. And her heart was very sore and wounded when she discovered that the beautiful Miss Lane took no real interest what- ever in herself, and that she only made use of her to suit her own purposes, and in spite of her utmost efforts not to care about this, Marion found that she could not help caring a great deal. It made her unhappy, for she could not help wishing from her heart that Hester might really like her for herself. Do what she would, she could not help liking her more and more, for there was something strangely interesting and attractive about this beautiful girl who, with all her faults, showed at times glimpses of a noble and sympathetic Goo Sp! C(O) i