Explore "A Nine Day's Wonder" by B.M. Croker on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The letter (for it was altogether too serious and strange a story to telegraph) which reached Lady Mulgrave, relating the fact that Mary Foley was Joseline Dene, disturbed her to such a degree that she was compelled to plead a shocking headache, and lunch as well as breakfast, in her own apartments.
It took her some time to attempt to realise a stepdaughter, aged twenty-one, Irish, uneducated, vulgar, and tawdry. _What_ could she do with the creature? A social atrocity, a well-born deformity! A girl with the best blood of France and England in her veins, and the ideas, aspirations, and deportment of a kitchen-maid! Oh, she felt as if the foundations of her position, were being upheaved.