Read "A Broken Blossom Vol. 1 of 3" by Florence Marryat online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Tessie had prophesied that Mrs. Carolus and Miss Markham would not call in each other's company, and so it happened. The married lady did not pay her visit till some days after her friend, and then it was performed with much greater ceremony. The two girls had gone out for a walk together towards Artois, and I had promised to follow them as soon as I had finished a long epistle which I was writing to dear Mrs. Sandilands, descriptive of my new life and the thoughts it had brought to me. I had sealed my letter and put on my black hat and cloak, when Madame Marmoret shouted at me from the kitchen staircase that Mrs. Carolus had arrived, and was waiting to see me in the _salon_. I would willingly have avoided her, but found, on inquiry, that she had asked for me by name, and Madame had confessed I was at home. So there was no alternative but to receive her, and I descended to the sitting-room with my letter in my hand. I found Mrs. Carolus robed in state, with a Parisian bonnet on and a Parisian mantle, and new lavender-coloured gloves. Her grandeur quite overcame me, and I felt very meek in my straw hat bound with crape, and my untrimmed, every-day costume.
‘Miss Marsh, I believe,' she said, as she shook hands with me, and I was fain to acknowledge that she believed aright.