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“The Day After the Fair”: Anna, a servant girl who has been somewhat befriended by her mistress, meets an attractive stranger, Charles, at the country town fair. A second meeting leads to not unexpected consequences. Charles, a budding barrister returns to London. Anna is genuinely fond of the young man but cannot read or write and so persuades her mistress to carry on a correspondence with him on her behalf. In writing her servant’s love letters and reading out his replies, the mistress herself falls in love with the young man. Charles, innocent of the deception, proposes marriage to Anna when he hears that she is pregnant. Only when it is too late does he discover the real writer of the letters that have so impressed him – the writer with whom, really, he is in love. On this shaky foundation the young couple start their marriage, leaving the mistress, whose own marriage is none too happy, desolate.
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