Explore "A Waif's Progress" by Rhoda Broughton on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
After all, Edward was better than his word, doing what he had at first wisely declined to do, "breaking" the news to Camilla, and receiving on his own devoted head the first rush, the deadliest Levin bolts of the thunderstorm of her wrath. The skirt of the deluge was quite enough for poor Miss Ransome. The interview opened with an amenity which gave the keynote.
"Had a scullery-maid in my service," Mrs. Tancred said, framing each word with such slow care, as if she feared even one of her pearls of speech should be lost -- "had a scullery-maid in my service conducted her courtship in the way you have, I should have made my housekeeper dismiss her at once without a character."