Read "The Cloven Foot" by Mary Elizabeth Braddon online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
‘Hazlehurst Rectory, February 22nd. -- Dear Ned, -- Do you remember my saying, when Laura refused to have a proper wedding-gown, that her marriage was altogether an ill-omened business? I told her so, I told you so; in fact, I think I told everybody so; if it be not an unpardonable exaggeration to call the handful of wretched dowdies and frumps in such a place as Hazlehurst everybody. Well, I was right. The marriage has been a complete _fiasco_. What do you think of our poor Laura's coming home from her honeymoon _alone_? Without even so much as her husband's portmanteau! She has shut herself up in the Manor-house, where she lives the life of a female anchorite, and is so reserved in her manner towards me, her oldest friend, her all but sister, that even I do not know the cause of this extraordinary state of affairs.
‘"My dear Celia, don't ask me anything about it," she said, when we had kissed each other, and cried a little, and I had looked at her collar and cuffs to see if she had brought a new style from Paris.