"Where they lived in an expensive Manner"
I've been doing a lot of reading about early newspapers for the WIP (my heroine's first husband was a provincial newspaper editor and his little brother, who runs the paper now, is a major character), and in From Grub Street to Fleet Street: An Illustrated History of English Newspapers, by Bob Clarke, I came across something fascinating: an account of an eighteenth century conwoman! She'd make a great heroine, I think, if you played it right. The first part of her story (at least, Clarke believes it's the same woman, and it does seem likely but not 100% conclusive unless you see something I don't) appears in the January 10th, 1765 St. James Chronicle: "A few Weeks ago a genteel Woman, about 25 Years of Age, applied to a Farmer and Broom-Maker, near Hadleigh in Hants for a Lodging; telling him that she was the Daughter of a Nobleman, and forced from her Father's House by his ill Treatment. Her Manner of relating the Story so affected the Farmer, that he t...