Read it through once

This letter, as will be seen, bore no evasive terms regarding Dr. Mitford; indeed, Miss Mitford knew quite well that any attempt to hoodwink William Harness concerning her father’s habits of life was only so much wasted ink and energy. In any case it is no edifying spectacle here presented—an improvident father obstinately persisting in a manner of living which present income did not justify; an invalid mother whose intellect was so weak that she had not the power to notice that things were reverting to the old bad ways; a daughter, struggling to make ends meet, to keep the improvident one satisfied and to withhold from the invalid the truth which to know might mean her death; and, to crown all, the fruit of her labours rejected at the eleventh hour. Was ever woman so stricken?