"CHAPTER I—OUR SOCIETY\n\n\nIN the first place, Cranford is in possession of the Amazons; all the\nholders of houses above a certain rent are women.  If a married couple\ncome to settle in the town, somehow the gentleman disappears; he is\neither fairly frightened to death by being the only man in the Cranford\nevening parties, or he is accounted for by being with his regiment, his\nship, or closely engaged in business all the week in the great\nneighbouring commercial town of Drumble, distant only twenty miles on a\nrailroad.  In short, whatever does become of the gentlemen, they are not\nat Cranford.  What could they do if they were there?  The surgeon has his\nround of thirty miles, and sleeps at Cranford; but every man cannot be a\nsurgeon.  For keeping the trim gardens full of choice flowers without a\nweed to speck them; for frightening away little boys who look wistfully\nat the said flowers through the railings; for rushing out at the geese\nthat occasionally venture in to the gardens if the gates are left open;\nfor deciding all questions of literature and politics without troubling\nthemselves with unnecessary reasons or arguments; for obtaining clear and\ncorrect knowledge of everybody’s affairs in the parish; for keeping their\nneat maid-servants in admirable order; for kindness (somewhat\ndictatorial) to the poor, and real tender good offices to each other\nwhenever they are in distress, the ladies of Cranford are quite\nsufficient.  “A man,” as one of them observed to me once, “is _so_ in the\nway in the house!”  Although the ladies of Cranford know all each other’s\nproceedings, they are exceedingly indifferent to each other’s opinions.\nIndeed, as each has her own individuality, not to say eccentricity,\npretty strongly developed, nothing is so easy as verbal retaliation; but,\nsomehow, good-will reigns among them to a considerable degree.\n\nThe Cranford ladies have only an occasional little quarrel, spirited out\nin a few peppery words and angry jerks of the head; just enough to\nprevent the even tenor of their lives from becoming too flat.  Their\ndress is very independent of fashion; as they observe, “What does it\nsignify how we dress here at Cranford, where everybody knows us?”  And if\nthey go from home, their reason is equally cogent, “What does it signify\nhow we dress here, where nobody knows us?”  The materials of their\nclothes are, in general, good and plain, and most of them are nearly as\nscrupulous as Miss Tyler, of cleanly memory; but I will answer for it,\nthe last gigot, the last tight and scanty petticoat in wear in England,\nwas seen in Cranford—and seen without a smile.\n\nI can testify to a magnificent family red silk umbrella, under which a\ngentle little spinster, left alone of many brothers and sisters, used to\npatter to church on rainy days.  Have you any red silk umbrellas in\nLondon?  We had a tradition of the first that had ever been seen in\nCranford; and the little boys mobbed it, and called it “a stick in\npetticoats.”  It might have been the very red silk one I have described,\nheld by a strong father over a troop of little ones; the poor little\nlady—the survivor of all—could scarcely carry it.\n\nThen there were rules and regulations for visiting and calls; and they\nwere announced to any young people who might be staying in the town, with\nall the solemnity with which the old Manx laws were read once a year on\nthe Tinwald Mount.\n\n“Our friends have sent to inquire how you are after your journey\nto-night, my dear” (fifteen miles in a gentleman’s carriage); “they will\ngive you some rest to-morrow, but the next day, I have no doubt, they\nwill call; so be at liberty after twelve—from twelve to three are our\ncalling hours.”\n\nThen, after they had called—\n\n“It is the third day; I dare say your mamma has told you, my dear, never\nto let more than three days elapse between receiving a call and returning\nit; and also, that you are never to stay longer than a quarter of an\nhour.”\n\n“But am I to look at my watch?  How am I to find out when a quarter of an\nhour has passed?”\n\n“You must keep thinking about the time, my dear, and not allow yourself\nto forget it in conversation.”\n\nAs everybody had this rule in their minds, whether they received or paid\na call, of course no absorbing subject was ever spoken about.  We kept\nourselves to short sentences of small talk, and were punctual to our\ntime.\n\nI imagine that a few of the gentlefolks of Cranford were poor, and had\nsome difficulty in making both ends meet; but they were like the\nSpartans, and concealed their smart under a smiling face.  We none of us\nspoke of money, because that subject savoured of commerce and trade, and\nthough some might be poor, we were all aristocratic.  The Cranfordians\nhad that kindly _esprit de corps_ which made them overlook all\ndeficiencies in success when some among them tried to conceal their\npoverty.  When Mrs Forrester, for instance, gave a party in her\nbaby-house of a dwelling, and the little maiden disturbed the ladies on\nthe sofa by a request that she might get the tea-tray out from\nunderneath, everyone took this novel proceeding as the most natural thing\nin the world, and talked on about household forms and ceremonies as if we\nall believed that our hostess had a regular servants’ hall, second table,\nwith housekeeper and steward, instead of the one little charity-school\nmaiden, whose short ruddy arms could never have been strong enough to\ncarry the tray upstairs, if she had not been assisted in private by her\nmistress, who now sat in state, pretending not to know what cakes were\nsent up, though she knew, and we knew, and she knew that we knew, and we\nknew that she knew that we knew, she had been busy all the morning making\ntea-bread and sponge-cakes.\n\nThere were one or two consequences arising from this general but\nunacknowledged poverty, and this very much acknowledged gentility, which\nwere not amiss, and which might be introduced into many circles of\nsociety to their great improvement.  For instance, the inhabitants of\nCranford kept early hours, and clattered home in their pattens, under the\nguidance of a lantern-bearer, about nine o’clock at night; and the whole\ntown was abed and asleep by half-past ten.  Moreover, it was considered\n“vulgar” (a tremendous word in Cranford) to give anything expensive, in\nthe way of eatable or drinkable, at the evening entertainments.  Wafer\nbread-and-butter and sponge-biscuits were all that the Honourable Mrs\nJamieson gave; and she was sister-in-law to the late Earl of Glenmire,\nalthough she did practise such “elegant economy.”\n\n“Elegant economy!”  How naturally one falls back into the phraseology of\nCranford!  There, economy was always “elegant,” and money-spending always\n“vulgar and ostentatious”; a sort of sour-grapeism which made us very\npeaceful and satisfied.  I never shall forget the dismay felt when a\ncertain Captain Brown came to live at Cranford, and openly spoke about\nhis being poor—not in a whisper to an intimate friend, the doors and\nwindows being previously closed, but in the public street! in a loud\nmilitary voice! alleging his poverty as a reason for not taking a\nparticular house.  The ladies of Cranford were already rather moaning\nover the invasion of their territories by a man and a gentleman.  He was\na half-pay captain, and had obtained some situation on a neighbouring\nrailroad, which had been vehemently petitioned against by the little\ntown; and if, in addition to his masculine gender, and his connection\nwith the obnoxious railroad, he was so brazen as to talk of being\npoor—why, then, indeed, he must be sent to Coventry.  Death was as true\nand as common as poverty; yet people never spoke about that, loud out in\nthe streets.  It was a word not to be mentioned to ears polite.  We had\ntacitly agreed to ignore that any with whom we associated on terms of\nvisiting equality could ever be prevented by poverty from doing anything\nthat they wished.  If we walked to or from a party, it was because the\nnight was _so_ fine, or the air _so_ refreshing, not because sedan-chairs\nwere expensive.  If we wore prints, instead of summer silks, it was\nbecause we preferred a washing material; and so on, till we blinded\nourselves to the vulgar fact that we were, all of us, people of very\nmoderate means.  Of course, then, we did not know what to make of a man\nwho could speak of poverty as if it was not a disgrace.  Yet, somehow,\nCaptain Brown made himself respected in Cranford, and was called upon, in\nspite of all resolutions to the contrary.  I was surprised to hear his\nopinions quoted as authority at a visit which I paid to Cranford about a\nyear after he had settled in the town.  My own friends had been among the\nbitterest opponents of any proposal to visit the Captain and his\ndaughters, only twelve months before; and now he was even admitted in the\ntabooed hours before twelve.  True, it was to discover the cause of a\nsmoking chimney, before the fire was lighted; but still Captain Brown\nwalked upstairs, nothing daunted, spoke in a voice too large for the\nroom, and joked quite in the way of a tame man about the house.  He had\nbeen blind to all the small slights, and omissions of trivial ceremonies,\nwith which he had been received.  He had been friendly, though the\nCranford ladies had been cool; he had answered small sarcastic\ncompliments in good faith; and with his manly frankness had overpowered\nall the shrinking which met him as a man who was not ashamed to be poor.\nAnd, at last, his excellent masculine common sense, and his facility in\ndevising expedients to overcome domestic dilemmas, had gained him an\nextraordinary place as authority among the Cranford ladies.  He himself\nwent on in his course, as unaware of his popularity as he had been of the\nreverse; and I am sure he was startled one day when he found his advice\nso highly esteemed as to make some counsel which he had given in jest to\nbe taken in sober, serious earnest.\n\nIt was on this subject: An old lady had an Alderney cow, which she looked\nupon as a daughter.  You could not pay the short quarter of an hour call\nwithout being told of the wonderful milk or wonderful intelligence of\nthis animal.  The whole town knew and kindly regarded Miss Betsy Barker’s\nAlderney; therefore great was the sympathy and regret when, in an\nunguarded moment, the poor cow tumbled into a lime-pit.  She moaned so\nloudly that she was soon heard and rescued; but meanwhile the poor beast\nhad lost most of her hair, and came out looking naked, cold, and\nmiserable, in a bare skin.  Everybody pitied the animal, though a few\ncould not restrain their smiles at her droll appearance.  Miss Betsy\nBarker absolutely cried with sorrow and dismay; and it was said she\nthought of trying a bath of oil.  This remedy, perhaps, was recommended\nby some one of the number whose advice she asked; but the proposal, if\never it was made, was knocked on the head by Captain Brown’s decided “Get\nher a flannel waistcoat and flannel drawers, ma’am, if you wish to keep\nher alive.  But my advice is, kill the poor creature at once.”\n\nMiss Betsy Barker dried her eyes, and thanked the Captain heartily; she\nset to work, and by-and-by all the town turned out to see the Alderney\nmeekly going to her pasture, clad in dark grey flannel.  I have watched\nher myself many a time.  Do you ever see cows dressed in grey flannel in\nLondon?\n\nCaptain Brown had taken a small house on the outskirts of the town, where\nhe lived with his two daughters.  He must have been upwards of sixty at\nthe time of the first visit I paid to Cranford after I had left it as a\nresidence.  But he had a wiry, well-trained, elastic figure, a stiff\nmilitary throw-back of his head, and a springing step, which made him\nappear much younger than he was.  His eldest daughter looked almost as\nold as himself, and betrayed the fact that his real was more than his\napparent age.  Miss Brown must have been forty; she had a sickly, pained,\ncareworn expression on her face, and looked as if the gaiety of youth had\nlong faded out of sight.  Even when young she must have been plain and\nhard-featured.  Miss Jessie Brown was ten years younger than her sister,\nand twenty shades prettier.  Her face was round and dimpled.  Miss\nJenkyns once said, in a passion against Captain Brown (the cause of which\nI will tell you presently), “that she thought it was time for Miss Jessie\nto leave off her dimples, and not always to be trying to look like a\nchild.”  It was true there was something childlike in her face; and there\nwill be, I think, till she dies, though she should live to a hundred.\nHer eyes were large blue wondering eyes, looking straight at you; her\nnose was unformed and snub, and her lips were red and dewy; she wore her\nhair, too, in little rows of curls, which heightened this appearance.  I\ndo not know whether she was pretty or not; but I liked her face, and so\ndid everybody, and I do not think she could help her dimples.  She had\nsomething of her father’s jauntiness of gait and manner; and any female\nobserver might detect a slight difference in the attire of the two\nsisters—that of Miss Jessie being about two pounds per annum more\nexpensive than Miss Brown’s.  Two pounds was a large sum in Captain\nBrown’s annual disbursements.\n\nSuch was the impression made upon me by the Brown family when I first saw\nthem all together in Cranford Church.  The Captain I had met before—on\nthe occasion of the smoky chimney, which he had cured by some simple\nalteration in the flue.  In church, he held his double eye-glass to his\neyes during the Morning Hymn, and then lifted up his head erect and sang\nout loud and joyfully.  He made the responses louder than the clerk—an\nold man with a piping feeble voice, who, I think, felt aggrieved at the\nCaptain’s sonorous bass, and quivered higher and higher in consequence.\n\nOn coming out of church, the brisk Captain paid the most gallant\nattention to his two daughters.  He nodded and smiled to his\nacquaintances; but he shook hands with none until he had helped Miss\nBrown to unfurl her umbrella, had relieved her of her prayer-book, and\nhad waited patiently till she, with trembling nervous hands, had taken up\nher gown to walk through the wet roads.\n\nI wonder what the Cranford ladies did with Captain Brown at their\nparties.  We had often rejoiced, in former days, that there was no\ngentleman to be attended to, and to find conversation for, at the\ncard-parties.  We had congratulated ourselves upon the snugness of the\nevenings; and, in our love for gentility, and distaste of mankind, we had\nalmost persuaded ourselves that to be a man was to be “vulgar”; so that\nwhen I found my friend and hostess, Miss Jenkyns, was going to have a\nparty in my honour, and that Captain and the Miss Browns were invited, I\nwondered much what would be the course of the evening.  Card-tables, with\ngreen baize tops, were set out by daylight, just as usual; it was the\nthird week in November, so the evenings closed in about four.  Candles,\nand clean packs of cards, were arranged on each table.  The fire was made\nup; the neat maid-servant had received her last directions; and there we\nstood, dressed in our best, each with a candle-lighter in our hands,\nready to dart at the candles as soon as the first knock came.  Parties in\nCranford were solemn festivities, making the ladies feel gravely elated\nas they sat together in their best dresses.  As soon as three had\narrived, we sat down to “Preference,” I being the unlucky fourth.  The\nnext four comers were put down immediately to another table; and\npresently the tea-trays, which I had seen set out in the store-room as I\npassed in the morning, were placed each on the middle of a card-table.\nThe china was delicate egg-shell; the old-fashioned silver glittered with\npolishing; but the eatables were of the slightest description.  While the\ntrays were yet on the tables, Captain and the Miss Browns came in; and I\ncould see that, somehow or other, the Captain was a favourite with all\nthe ladies present.  Ruffled brows were smoothed, sharp voices lowered at\nhis approach.  Miss Brown looked ill, and depressed almost to gloom.\nMiss Jessie smiled as usual, and seemed nearly as popular as her father.\nHe immediately and quietly assumed the man’s place in the room; attended\nto every one’s wants, lessened the pretty maid-servant’s labour by\nwaiting on empty cups and bread-and-butterless ladies; and yet did it all\nin so easy and dignified a manner, and so much as if it were a matter of\ncourse for the strong to attend to the weak, that he was a true man\nthroughout.  He played for threepenny points with as grave an interest as\nif they had been pounds; and yet, in all his attention to strangers, he\nhad an eye on his suffering daughter—for suffering I was sure she was,\nthough to many eyes she might only appear to be irritable.  Miss Jessie\ncould not play cards: but she talked to the sitters-out, who, before her\ncoming, had been rather inclined to be cross.  She sang, too, to an old\ncracked piano, which I think had been a spinet in its youth.  Miss Jessie\nsang, “Jock of Hazeldean” a little out of tune; but we were none of us\nmusical, though Miss Jenkyns beat time, out of time, by way of appearing\nto be so.\n\nIt was very good of Miss Jenkyns to do this; for I had seen that, a\nlittle before, she had been a good deal annoyed by Miss Jessie Brown’s\nunguarded admission (_à propos_ of Shetland wool) that she had an uncle,\nher mother’s brother, who was a shop-keeper in Edinburgh.  Miss Jenkyns\ntried to drown this confession by a terrible cough—for the Honourable Mrs\nJamieson was sitting at a card-table nearest Miss Jessie, and what would\nshe say or think if she found out she was in the same room with a\nshop-keeper’s niece!  But Miss Jessie Brown (who had no tact, as we all\nagreed the next morning) _would_ repeat the information, and assure Miss\nPole she could easily get her the identical Shetland wool required,\n“through my uncle, who has the best assortment of Shetland goods of any\none in Edinbro’.”  It was to take the taste of this out of our mouths,\nand the sound of this out of our ears, that Miss Jenkyns proposed music;\nso I say again, it was very good of her to beat time to the song.\n\nWhen the trays re-appeared with biscuits and wine, punctually at a\nquarter to nine, there was conversation, comparing of cards, and talking\nover tricks; but by-and-by Captain Brown sported a bit of literature.\n\n“Have you seen any numbers of ‘The Pickwick Papers’?” said he.  (They\nwere then publishing in parts.)  “Capital thing!”\n\nNow Miss Jenkyns was daughter of a deceased rector of Cranford; and, on\nthe strength of a number of manuscript sermons, and a pretty good library\nof divinity, considered herself literary, and looked upon any\nconversation about books as a challenge to her.  So she answered and\nsaid, “Yes, she had seen them; indeed, she might say she had read them.”\n\n“And what do you think of them?” exclaimed Captain Brown.  “Aren’t they\nfamously good?”\n\nSo urged Miss Jenkyns could not but speak.\n\n“I must say, I don’t think they are by any means equal to Dr Johnson.\nStill, perhaps, the author is young.  Let him persevere, and who knows\nwhat he may become if he will take the great Doctor for his model?”  This\nwas evidently too much for Captain Brown to take placidly; and I saw the\nwords on the tip of his tongue before Miss Jenkyns had finished her\nsentence.\n\n“It is quite a different sort of thing, my dear madam,” he began.\n\n“I am quite aware of that,” returned she.  “And I make allowances,\nCaptain Brown.”\n\n“Just allow me to read you a scene out of this month’s number,” pleaded\nhe.  “I had it only this morning, and I don’t think the company can have\nread it yet.”\n\n“As you please,” said she, settling herself with an air of resignation.\nHe read the account of the “swarry” which Sam Weller gave at Bath.  Some\nof us laughed heartily.  _I_ did not dare, because I was staying in the\nhouse.  Miss Jenkyns sat in patient gravity.  When it was ended, she\nturned to me, and said with mild dignity—\n\n“Fetch me ‘Rasselas,’ my dear, out of the book-room.”\n\nWhen I had brought it to her, she turned to Captain Brown—\n\n“Now allow _me_ to read you a scene, and then the present company can\njudge between your favourite, Mr Boz, and Dr Johnson.”\n\nShe read one of the conversations between Rasselas and Imlac, in a\nhigh-pitched, majestic voice: and when she had ended, she said, “I\nimagine I am now justified in my preference of Dr Johnson as a writer of\nfiction.”  The Captain screwed his lips up, and drummed on the table, but\nhe did not speak.  She thought she would give him a finishing blow or\ntwo.\n\n“I consider it vulgar, and below the dignity of literature, to publish in\nnumbers.”\n\n“How was the _Rambler_ published, ma’am?” asked Captain Brown in a low\nvoice, which I think Miss Jenkyns could not have heard.\n\n“Dr Johnson’s style is a model for young beginners.  My father\nrecommended it to me when I began to write letters—I have formed my own\nstyle upon it; I recommended it to your favourite.”\n\n“I should be very sorry for him to exchange his style for any such\npompous writing,” said Captain Brown.\n\nMiss Jenkyns felt this as a personal affront, in a way of which the\nCaptain had not dreamed.  Epistolary writing she and her friends\nconsidered as her _forte_.  Many a copy of many a letter have I seen\nwritten and corrected on the slate, before she “seized the half-hour just\nprevious to post-time to assure” her friends of this or of that; and Dr\nJohnson was, as she said, her model in these compositions.  She drew\nherself up with dignity, and only replied to Captain Brown’s last remark\nby saying, with marked emphasis on every syllable, “I prefer Dr Johnson\nto Mr Boz.”\n\nIt is said—I won’t vouch for the fact—that Captain Brown was heard to\nsay, _sotto voce_, “D-n Dr Johnson!”  If he did, he was penitent\nafterwards, as he showed by going to stand near Miss Jenkyns’ arm-chair,\nand endeavouring to beguile her into conversation on some more pleasing\nsubject.  But she was inexorable.  The next day she made the remark I\nhave mentioned about Miss Jessie’s dimples.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II—THE CAPTAIN\n\n\nIT was impossible to live a month at Cranford and not know the daily\nhabits of each resident; and long before my visit was ended I knew much\nconcerning the whole Brown trio.  There was nothing new to be discovered\nrespecting their poverty; for they had spoken simply and openly about\nthat from the very first.  They made no mystery of the necessity for\ntheir being economical.  All that remained to be discovered was the\nCaptain’s infinite kindness of heart, and the various modes in which,\nunconsciously to himself, he manifested it.  Some little anecdotes were\ntalked about for some time after they occurred.  As we did not read much,\nand as all the ladies were pretty well suited with servants, there was a\ndearth of subjects for conversation.  We therefore discussed the\ncircumstance of the Captain taking a poor old woman’s dinner out of her\nhands one very slippery Sunday.  He had met her returning from the\nbakehouse as he came from church, and noticed her precarious footing;\nand, with the grave dignity with which he did everything, he relieved her\nof her burden, and steered along the street by her side, carrying her\nbaked mutton and potatoes safely home.  This was thought very eccentric;\nand it was rather expected that he would pay a round of calls, on the\nMonday morning, to explain and apologise to the Cranford sense of\npropriety: but he did no such thing: and then it was decided that he was\nashamed, and was keeping out of sight.  In a kindly pity for him, we\nbegan to say, “After all, the Sunday morning’s occurrence showed great\ngoodness of heart,” and it was resolved that he should be comforted on\nhis next appearance amongst us; but, lo! he came down upon us, untouched\nby any sense of shame, speaking loud and bass as ever, his head thrown\nback, his wig as jaunty and well-curled as usual, and we were obliged to\nconclude he had forgotten all about Sunday.\n\nMiss Pole and Miss Jessie Brown had set up a kind of intimacy on the\nstrength of the Shetland wool and the new knitting stitches; so it\nhappened that when I went to visit Miss Pole I saw more of the Browns\nthan I had done while staying with Miss Jenkyns, who had never got over\nwhat she called Captain Brown’s disparaging remarks upon Dr Johnson as a\nwriter of light and agreeable fiction.  I found that Miss Brown was\nseriously ill of some lingering, incurable complaint, the pain occasioned\nby which gave the uneasy expression to her face that I had taken for\nunmitigated crossness.  Cross, too, she was at times, when the nervous\nirritability occasioned by her disease became past endurance.  Miss\nJessie bore with her at these times, even more patiently than she did\nwith the bitter self-upbraidings by which they were invariably succeeded.\nMiss Brown used to accuse herself, not merely of hasty and irritable\ntemper, but also of being the cause why her father and sister were\nobliged to pinch, in order to allow her the small luxuries which were\nnecessaries in her condition.  She would so fain have made sacrifices for\nthem, and have lightened their cares, that the original generosity of her\ndisposition added acerbity to her temper.  All this was borne by Miss\nJessie and her father with more than placidity—with absolute tenderness.\nI forgave Miss Jessie her singing out of tune, and her juvenility of\ndress, when I saw her at home.  I came to perceive that Captain Brown’s\ndark Brutus wig and padded coat (alas! too often threadbare) were\nremnants of the military smartness of his youth, which he now wore\nunconsciously.  He was a man of infinite resources, gained in his barrack\nexperience.  As he confessed, no one could black his boots to please him\nexcept himself; but, indeed, he was not above saving the little\nmaid-servant’s labours in every way—knowing, most likely, that his\ndaughter’s illness made the place a hard one.\n\nHe endeavoured to make peace with Miss Jenkyns soon after the memorable\ndispute I have named, by a present of a wooden fire-shovel (his own\nmaking), having heard her say how much the grating of an iron one annoyed\nher.  She received the present with cool gratitude, and thanked him\nformally.  When he was gone, she bade me put it away in the lumber-room;\nfeeling, probably, that no present from a man who preferred Mr Boz to Dr\nJohnson could be less jarring than an iron fire-shovel.\n\nSuch was the state of things when I left Cranford and went to Drumble.  I\nhad, however, several correspondents, who kept me _au fait_ as to the\nproceedings of the dear little town.  There was Miss Pole, who was\nbecoming as much absorbed in crochet as she had been once in knitting,\nand the burden of whose letter was something like, “But don’t you forget\nthe white worsted at Flint’s” of the old song; for at the end of every\nsentence of news came a fresh direction as to some crochet commission\nwhich I was to execute for her.  Miss Matilda Jenkyns (who did not mind\nbeing called Miss Matty, when Miss Jenkyns was not by) wrote nice, kind,\nrambling letters, now and then venturing into an opinion of her own; but\nsuddenly pulling herself up, and either begging me not to name what she\nhad said, as Deborah thought differently, and _she_ knew, or else putting\nin a postscript to the effect that, since writing the above, she had been\ntalking over the subject with Deborah, and was quite convinced that,\netc.—(here probably followed a recantation of every opinion she had given\nin the letter).  Then came Miss Jenkyns—Deborah, as she liked Miss Matty\nto call her, her father having once said that the Hebrew name ought to be\nso pronounced.  I secretly think she took the Hebrew prophetess for a\nmodel in character; and, indeed, she was not unlike the stern prophetess\nin some ways, making allowance, of course, for modern customs and\ndifference in dress.  Miss Jenkyns wore a cravat, and a little bonnet\nlike a jockey-cap, and altogether had the appearance of a strong-minded\nwoman; although she would have despised the modern idea of women being\nequal to men.  Equal, indeed! she knew they were superior.  But to return\nto her letters.  Everything in them was stately and grand like herself.\nI have been looking them over (dear Miss Jenkyns, how I honoured her!)\nand I will give an extract, more especially because it relates to our\nfriend Captain Brown:—\n\n“The Honourable Mrs Jamieson has only just quitted me; and, in the course\nof conversation, she communicated to me the intelligence that she had\nyesterday received a call from her revered husband’s quondam friend, Lord\nMauleverer.  You will not easily conjecture what brought his lordship\nwithin the precincts of our little town.  It was to see Captain Brown,\nwith whom, it appears, his lordship was acquainted in the ‘plumed wars,’\nand who had the privilege of averting destruction from his lordship’s\nhead when some great peril was impending over it, off the misnomered Cape\nof Good Hope.  You know our friend the Honourable Mrs Jamieson’s\ndeficiency in the spirit of innocent curiosity, and you will therefore\nnot be so much surprised when I tell you she was quite unable to disclose\nto me the exact nature of the peril in question.  I was anxious, I\nconfess, to ascertain in what manner Captain Brown, with his limited\nestablishment, could receive so distinguished a guest; and I discovered\nthat his lordship retired to rest, and, let us hope, to refreshing\nslumbers, at the Angel Hotel; but shared the Brunonian meals during the\ntwo days that he honoured Cranford with his august presence.  Mrs\nJohnson, our civil butcher’s wife, informs me that Miss Jessie purchased\na leg of lamb; but, besides this, I can hear of no preparation whatever\nto give a suitable reception to so distinguished a visitor.  Perhaps they\nentertained him with ‘the feast of reason and the flow of soul’; and to\nus, who are acquainted with Captain Brown’s sad want of relish for ‘the\npure wells of English undefiled,’ it may be matter for congratulation\nthat he has had the opportunity of improving his taste by holding\nconverse with an elegant and refined member of the British aristocracy.\nBut from some mundane failings who is altogether free?”\n\nMiss Pole and Miss Matty wrote to me by the same post.  Such a piece of\nnews as Lord Mauleverer’s visit was not to be lost on the Cranford\nletter-writers: they made the most of it.  Miss Matty humbly apologised\nfor writing at the same time as her sister, who was so much more capable\nthan she to describe the honour done to Cranford; but in spite of a\nlittle bad spelling, Miss Matty’s account gave me the best idea of the\ncommotion occasioned by his lordship’s visit, after it had occurred; for,\nexcept the people at the Angel, the Browns, Mrs Jamieson, and a little\nlad his lordship had sworn at for driving a dirty hoop against the\naristocratic legs, I could not hear of any one with whom his lordship had\nheld conversation.\n\nMy next visit to Cranford was in the summer.  There had been neither\nbirths, deaths, nor marriages since I was there last.  Everybody lived in\nthe same house, and wore pretty nearly the same well-preserved,\nold-fashioned clothes.  The greatest event was, that Miss Jenkyns had\npurchased a new carpet for the drawing-room.  Oh, the busy work Miss\nMatty and I had in chasing the sunbeams, as they fell in an afternoon\nright down on this carpet through the blindless window!  We spread\nnewspapers over the places and sat down to our book or our work; and, lo!\nin a quarter of an hour the sun had moved, and was blazing away on a\nfresh spot; and down again we went on our knees to alter the position of\nthe newspapers.  We were very busy, too, one whole morning, before Miss\nJenkyns gave her party, in following her directions, and in cutting out\nand stitching together pieces of newspaper so as to form little paths to\nevery chair set for the expected visitors, lest their shoes might dirty\nor defile the purity of the carpet.  Do you make paper paths for every\nguest to walk upon in London?\n\nCaptain Brown and Miss Jenkyns were not very cordial to each other.  The\nliterary dispute, of which I had seen the beginning, was a “raw,” the\nslightest touch on which made them wince.  It was the only difference of\nopinion they had ever had; but that difference was enough.  Miss Jenkyns\ncould not refrain from talking at Captain Brown; and, though he did not\nreply, he drummed with his fingers, which action she felt and resented as\nvery disparaging to Dr Johnson.  He was rather ostentatious in his\npreference of the writings of Mr Boz; would walk through the streets so\nabsorbed in them that he all but ran against Miss Jenkyns; and though his\napologies were earnest and sincere, and though he did not, in fact, do\nmore than startle her and himself, she owned to me she had rather he had\nknocked her down, if he had only been reading a higher style of\nliterature.  The poor, brave Captain! he looked older, and more worn, and\nhis clothes were very threadbare.  But he seemed as bright and cheerful\nas ever, unless he was asked about his daughter’s health.\n\n“She suffers a great deal, and she must suffer more: we do what we can to\nalleviate her pain;—God’s will be done!”  He took off his hat at these\nlast words.  I found, from Miss Matty, that everything had been done, in\nfact.  A medical man, of high repute in that country neighbourhood, had\nbeen sent for, and every injunction he had given was attended to,\nregardless of expense.  Miss Matty was sure they denied themselves many\nthings in order to make the invalid comfortable; but they never spoke\nabout it; and as for Miss Jessie!—“I really think she’s an angel,” said\npoor Miss Matty, quite overcome.  “To see her way of bearing with Miss\nBrown’s crossness, and the bright face she puts on after she’s been\nsitting up a whole night and scolded above half of it, is quite\nbeautiful.  Yet she looks as neat and as ready to welcome the Captain at\nbreakfast-time as if she had been asleep in the Queen’s bed all night.\nMy dear! you could never laugh at her prim little curls or her pink bows\nagain if you saw her as I have done.”  I could only feel very penitent,\nand greet Miss Jessie with double respect when I met her next.  She\nlooked faded and pinched; and her lips began to quiver, as if she was\nvery weak, when she spoke of her sister.  But she brightened, and sent\nback the tears that were glittering in her pretty eyes, as she said—\n\n“But, to be sure, what a town Cranford is for kindness!  I don’t suppose\nany one has a better dinner than usual cooked but the best part of all\ncomes in a little covered basin for my sister.  The poor people will\nleave their earliest vegetables at our door for her.  They speak short\nand gruff, as if they were ashamed of it: but I am sure it often goes to\nmy heart to see their thoughtfulness.”  The tears now came back and\noverflowed; but after a minute or two she began to scold herself, and\nended by going away the same cheerful Miss Jessie as ever.\n\n“But why does not this Lord Mauleverer do something for the man who saved\nhis life?” said I.\n\n“Why, you see, unless Captain Brown has some reason for it, he never\nspeaks about being poor; and he walked along by his lordship looking as\nhappy and cheerful as a prince; and as they never called attention to\ntheir dinner by apologies, and as Miss Brown was better that day, and all\nseemed bright, I daresay his lordship never knew how much care there was\nin the background.  He did send game in the winter pretty often, but now\nhe is gone abroad.”\n\nI had often occasion to notice the use that was made of fragments and\nsmall opportunities in Cranford; the rose-leaves that were gathered ere\nthey fell to make into a potpourri for someone who had no garden; the\nlittle bundles of lavender flowers sent to strew the drawers of some\ntown-dweller, or to burn in the chamber of some invalid.  Things that\nmany would despise, and actions which it seemed scarcely worth while to\nperform, were all attended to in Cranford.  Miss Jenkyns stuck an apple\nfull of cloves, to be heated and smell pleasantly in Miss Brown’s room;\nand as she put in each clove she uttered a Johnsonian sentence.  Indeed,\nshe never could think of the Browns without talking Johnson; and, as they\nwere seldom absent from her thoughts just then, I heard many a rolling,\nthree-piled sentence.\n\nCaptain Brown called one day to thank Miss Jenkyns for many little\nkindnesses, which I did not know until then that she had rendered.  He\nhad suddenly become like an old man; his deep bass voice had a quavering\nin it, his eyes looked dim, and the lines on his face were deep.  He did\nnot—could not—speak cheerfully of his daughter’s state, but he talked\nwith manly, pious resignation, and not much.  Twice over he said, “What\nJessie has been to us, God only knows!” and after the second time, he got\nup hastily, shook hands all round without speaking, and left the room.\n\nThat afternoon we perceived little groups in the street, all listening\nwith faces aghast to some tale or other.  Miss Jenkyns wondered what\ncould be the matter for some time before she took the undignified step of\nsending Jenny out to inquire.\n\nJenny came back with a white face of terror.  “Oh, ma’am!  Oh, Miss\nJenkyns, ma’am!  Captain Brown is killed by them nasty cruel railroads!”\nand she burst into tears.  She, along with many others, had experienced\nthe poor Captain’s kindness.\n\n“How?—where—where?  Good God!  Jenny, don’t waste time in crying, but\ntell us something.”  Miss Matty rushed out into the street at once, and\ncollared the man who was telling the tale.\n\n“Come in—come to my sister at once, Miss Jenkyns, the rector’s daughter.\nOh, man, man! say it is not true,” she cried, as she brought the\naffrighted carter, sleeking down his hair, into the drawing-room, where\nhe stood with his wet boots on the new carpet, and no one regarded it.\n\n“Please, mum, it is true.  I seed it myself,” and he shuddered at the\nrecollection.  “The Captain was a-reading some new book as he was deep\nin, a-waiting for the down train; and there was a little lass as wanted\nto come to its mammy, and gave its sister the slip, and came toddling\nacross the line.  And he looked up sudden, at the sound of the train\ncoming, and seed the child, and he darted on the line and cotched it up,\nand his foot slipped, and the train came over him in no time.  O Lord,\nLord!  Mum, it’s quite true, and they’ve come over to tell his daughters.\nThe child’s safe, though, with only a bang on its shoulder as he threw it\nto its mammy.  Poor Captain would be glad of that, mum, wouldn’t he?  God\nbless him!”  The great rough carter puckered up his manly face, and\nturned away to hide his tears.  I turned to Miss Jenkyns.  She looked\nvery ill, as if she were going to faint, and signed to me to open the\nwindow.\n\n“Matilda, bring me my bonnet.  I must go to those girls.  God pardon me,\nif ever I have spoken contemptuously to the Captain!”\n\nMiss Jenkyns arrayed herself to go out, telling Miss Matilda to give the\nman a glass of wine.  While she was away, Miss Matty and I huddled over\nthe fire, talking in a low and awe-struck voice.  I know we cried quietly\nall the time.\n\nMiss Jenkyns came home in a silent mood, and we durst not ask her many\nquestions.  She told us that Miss Jessie had fainted, and that she and\nMiss Pole had had some difficulty in bringing her round; but that, as\nsoon as she recovered, she begged one of them to go and sit with her\nsister.\n\n“Mr Hoggins says she cannot live many days, and she shall be spared this\nshock,” said Miss Jessie, shivering with feelings to which she dared not\ngive way.\n\n“But how can you manage, my dear?” asked Miss Jenkyns; “you cannot bear\nup, she must see your tears.”\n\n“God will help me—I will not give way—she was asleep when the news came;\nshe may be asleep yet.  She would be so utterly miserable, not merely at\nmy father’s death, but to think of what would become of me; she is so\ngood to me.”  She looked up earnestly in their faces with her soft true\neyes, and Miss Pole told Miss Jenkyns afterwards she could hardly bear\nit, knowing, as she did, how Miss Brown treated her sister.\n\nHowever, it was settled according to Miss Jessie’s wish.  Miss Brown was\nto be told her father had been summoned to take a short journey on\nrailway business.  They had managed it in some way—Miss Jenkyns could not\nexactly say how.  Miss Pole was to stop with Miss Jessie.  Mrs Jamieson\nhad sent to inquire.  And this was all we heard that night; and a\nsorrowful night it was.  The next day a full account of the fatal\naccident was in the county paper which Miss Jenkyns took in.  Her eyes\nwere very weak, she said, and she asked me to read it.  When I came to\nthe “gallant gentleman was deeply engaged in the perusal of a number of\n‘Pickwick,’ which he had just received,” Miss Jenkyns shook her head long\nand solemnly, and then sighed out, “Poor, dear, infatuated man!”\n\nThe corpse was to be taken from the station to the parish church, there\nto be interred.  Miss Jessie had set her heart on following it to the\ngrave; and no dissuasives could alter her resolve.  Her restraint upon\nherself made her almost obstinate; she resisted all Miss Pole’s\nentreaties and Miss Jenkyns’ advice.  At last Miss Jenkyns gave up the\npoint; and after a silence, which I feared portended some deep\ndispleasure against Miss Jessie, Miss Jenkyns said she should accompany\nthe latter to the funeral.\n\n“It is not fit for you to go alone.  It would be against both propriety\nand humanity were I to allow it.”\n\nMiss Jessie seemed as if she did not half like this arrangement; but her\nobstinacy, if she had any, had been exhausted in her determination to go\nto the interment.  She longed, poor thing, I have no doubt, to cry alone\nover the grave of the dear father to whom she had been all in all, and to\ngive way, for one little half-hour, uninterrupted by sympathy and\nunobserved by friendship.  But it was not to be.  That afternoon Miss\nJenkyns sent out for a yard of black crape, and employed herself busily\nin trimming the little black silk bonnet I have spoken about.  When it\nwas finished she put it on, and looked at us for approbation—admiration\nshe despised.  I was full of sorrow, but, by one of those whimsical\nthoughts which come unbidden into our heads, in times of deepest grief, I\nno sooner saw the bonnet than I was reminded of a helmet; and in that\nhybrid bonnet, half helmet, half jockey-cap, did Miss Jenkyns attend\nCaptain Brown’s funeral, and, I believe, supported Miss Jessie with a\ntender, indulgent firmness which was invaluable, allowing her to weep her\npassionate fill before they left.\n\nMiss Pole, Miss Matty, and I, meanwhile attended to Miss Brown: and hard\nwork we found it to relieve her querulous and never-ending complaints.\nBut if we were so weary and dispirited, what must Miss Jessie have been!\nYet she came back almost calm as if she had gained a new strength.  She\nput off her mourning dress, and came in, looking pale and gentle,\nthanking us each with a soft long pressure of the hand.  She could even\nsmile—a faint, sweet, wintry smile—as if to reassure us of her power to\nendure; but her look made our eyes fill suddenly with tears, more than if\nshe had cried outright.\n\nIt was settled that Miss Pole was to remain with her all the watching\nlivelong night; and that Miss Matty and I were to return in the morning\nto relieve them, and give Miss Jessie the opportunity for a few hours of\nsleep.  But when the morning came, Miss Jenkyns appeared at the\nbreakfast-table, equipped in her helmet-bonnet, and ordered Miss Matty to\nstay at home, as she meant to go and help to nurse.  She was evidently in\na state of great friendly excitement, which she showed by eating her\nbreakfast standing, and scolding the household all round.\n\nNo nursing—no energetic strong-minded woman could help Miss Brown now.\nThere was that in the room as we entered which was stronger than us all,\nand made us shrink into solemn awestruck helplessness.  Miss Brown was\ndying.  We hardly knew her voice, it was so devoid of the complaining\ntone we had always associated with it.  Miss Jessie told me afterwards\nthat it, and her face too, were just what they had been formerly, when\nher mother’s death left her the young anxious head of the family, of whom\nonly Miss Jessie survived.\n\nShe was conscious of her sister’s presence, though not, I think, of ours.\nWe stood a little behind the curtain: Miss Jessie knelt with her face\nnear her sister’s, in order to catch the last soft awful whispers.\n\n“Oh, Jessie!  Jessie!  How selfish I have been!  God forgive me for\nletting you sacrifice yourself for me as you did!  I have so loved\nyou—and yet I have thought only of myself.  God forgive me!”\n\n“Hush, love! hush!” said Miss Jessie, sobbing.\n\n“And my father, my dear, dear father!  I will not complain now, if God\nwill give me strength to be patient.  But, oh, Jessie! tell my father how\nI longed and yearned to see him at last, and to ask his forgiveness.  He\ncan never know now how I loved him—oh! if I might but tell him, before I\ndie!  What a life of sorrow his has been, and I have done so little to\ncheer him!”\n\nA light came into Miss Jessie’s face.  “Would it comfort you, dearest, to\nthink that he does know?—would it comfort you, love, to know that his\ncares, his sorrows”—Her voice quivered, but she steadied it into\ncalmness—“Mary! he has gone before you to the place where the weary are\nat rest.  He knows now how you loved him.”\n\nA strange look, which was not distress, came over Miss Brown’s face.  She\ndid not speak for come time, but then we saw her lips form the words,\nrather than heard the sound—“Father, mother, Harry, Archy;”—then, as if\nit were a new idea throwing a filmy shadow over her darkened mind—“But\nyou will be alone, Jessie!”\n\nMiss Jessie had been feeling this all during the silence, I think; for\nthe tears rolled down her cheeks like rain, at these words, and she could\nnot answer at first.  Then she put her hands together tight, and lifted\nthem up, and said—but not to us—“Though He slay me, yet will I trust in\nHim.”\n\nIn a few moments more Miss Brown lay calm and still—never to sorrow or\nmurmur more.\n\nAfter this second funeral, Miss Jenkyns insisted that Miss Jessie should\ncome to stay with her rather than go back to the desolate house, which,\nin fact, we learned from Miss Jessie, must now be given up, as she had\nnot wherewithal to maintain it.  She had something above twenty pounds a\nyear, besides the interest of the money for which the furniture would\nsell; but she could not live upon that: and so we talked over her\nqualifications for earning money.\n\n“I can sew neatly,” said she, “and I like nursing.  I think, too, I could\nmanage a house, if any one would try me as housekeeper; or I would go\ninto a shop as saleswoman, if they would have patience with me at first.”\n\nMiss Jenkyns declared, in an angry voice, that she should do no such\nthing; and talked to herself about “some people having no idea of their\nrank as a captain’s daughter,” nearly an hour afterwards, when she\nbrought Miss Jessie up a basin of delicately-made arrowroot, and stood\nover her like a dragoon until the last spoonful was finished: then she\ndisappeared.  Miss Jessie began to tell me some more of the plans which\nhad suggested themselves to her, and insensibly fell into talking of the\ndays that were past and gone, and interested me so much I neither knew\nnor heeded how time passed.  We were both startled when Miss Jenkyns\nreappeared, and caught us crying.  I was afraid lest she would be\ndispleased, as she often said that crying hindered digestion, and I knew\nshe wanted Miss Jessie to get strong; but, instead, she looked queer and\nexcited, and fidgeted round us without saying anything.  At last she\nspoke.\n\n“I have been so much startled—no, I’ve not been at all startled—don’t\nmind me, my dear Miss Jessie—I’ve been very much surprised—in fact, I’ve\nhad a caller, whom you knew once, my dear Miss Jessie”—\n\nMiss Jessie went very white, then flushed scarlet, and looked eagerly at\nMiss Jenkyns.\n\n“A gentleman, my dear, who wants to know if you would see him.”\n\n“Is it?—it is not”—stammered out Miss Jessie—and got no farther.\n\n“This is his card,” said Miss Jenkyns, giving it to Miss Jessie; and\nwhile her head was bent over it, Miss Jenkyns went through a series of\nwinks and odd faces to me, and formed her lips into a long sentence, of\nwhich, of course, I could not understand a word.\n\n“May he come up?” asked Miss Jenkyns at last.\n\n“Oh, yes! certainly!” said Miss Jessie, as much as to say, this is your\nhouse, you may show any visitor where you like.  She took up some\nknitting of Miss Matty’s and began to be very busy, though I could see\nhow she trembled all over.\n\nMiss Jenkyns rang the bell, and told the servant who answered it to show\nMajor Gordon upstairs; and, presently, in walked a tall, fine,\nfrank-looking man of forty or upwards.  He shook hands with Miss Jessie;\nbut he could not see her eyes, she kept them so fixed on the ground.\nMiss Jenkyns asked me if I would come and help her to tie up the\npreserves in the store-room; and though Miss Jessie plucked at my gown,\nand even looked up at me with begging eye, I durst not refuse to go where\nMiss Jenkyns asked.  Instead of tying up preserves in the store-room,\nhowever, we went to talk in the dining-room; and there Miss Jenkyns told\nme what Major Gordon had told her; how he had served in the same regiment\nwith Captain Brown, and had become acquainted with Miss Jessie, then a\nsweet-looking, blooming girl of eighteen; how the acquaintance had grown\ninto love on his part, though it had been some years before he had\nspoken; how, on becoming possessed, through the will of an uncle, of a\ngood estate in Scotland, he had offered and been refused, though with so\nmuch agitation and evident distress that he was sure she was not\nindifferent to him; and how he had discovered that the obstacle was the\nfell disease which was, even then, too surely threatening her sister.\nShe had mentioned that the surgeons foretold intense suffering; and there\nwas no one but herself to nurse her poor Mary, or cheer and comfort her\nfather during the time of illness.  They had had long discussions; and on\nher refusal to pledge herself to him as his wife when all should be over,\nhe had grown angry, and broken off entirely, and gone abroad, believing\nthat she was a cold-hearted person whom he would do well to forget.  He\nhad been travelling in the East, and was on his return home when, at\nRome, he saw the account of Captain Brown’s death in _Galignani_.\n\nJust then Miss Matty, who had been out all the morning, and had only\nlately returned to the house, burst in with a face of dismay and outraged\npropriety.\n\n“Oh, goodness me!” she said.  “Deborah, there’s a gentleman sitting in\nthe drawing-room with his arm round Miss Jessie’s waist!”  Miss Matty’s\neyes looked large with terror.\n\nMiss Jenkyns snubbed her down in an instant.\n\n“The most proper place in the world for his arm to be in.  Go away,\nMatilda, and mind your own business.”  This from her sister, who had\nhitherto been a model of feminine decorum, was a blow for poor Miss\nMatty, and with a double shock she left the room.\n\nThe last time I ever saw poor Miss Jenkyns was many years after this.\nMrs Gordon had kept up a warm and affectionate intercourse with all at\nCranford.  Miss Jenkyns, Miss Matty, and Miss Pole had all been to visit\nher, and returned with wonderful accounts of her house, her husband, her\ndress, and her looks.  For, with happiness, something of her early bloom\nreturned; she had been a year or two younger than we had taken her for.\nHer eyes were always lovely, and, as Mrs Gordon, her dimples were not out\nof place.  At the time to which I have referred, when I last saw Miss\nJenkyns, that lady was old and feeble, and had lost something of her\nstrong mind.  Little Flora Gordon was staying with the Misses Jenkyns,\nand when I came in she was reading aloud to Miss Jenkyns, who lay feeble\nand changed on the sofa.  Flora put down the _Rambler_ when I came in.\n\n“Ah!” said Miss Jenkyns, “you find me changed, my dear.  I can’t see as I\nused to do.  If Flora were not here to read to me, I hardly know how I\nshould get through the day.  Did you ever read the _Rambler_?  It’s a\nwonderful book—wonderful! and the most improving reading for Flora”\n(which I daresay it would have been, if she could have read half the\nwords without spelling, and could have understood the meaning of a\nthird), “better than that strange old book, with the queer name, poor\nCaptain Brown was killed for reading—that book by Mr Boz, you know—‘Old\nPoz’; when I was a girl—but that’s a long time ago—I acted Lucy in ‘Old\nPoz.’”  She babbled on long enough for Flora to get a good long spell at\nthe “Christmas Carol,” which Miss Matty had left on the table.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III—A LOVE AFFAIR OF LONG AGO\n\n\nI THOUGHT that probably my connection with Cranford would cease after\nMiss Jenkyns’s death; at least, that it would have to be kept up by\ncorrespondence, which bears much the same relation to personal\nintercourse that the books of dried plants I sometimes see (“Hortus\nSiccus,” I think they call the thing) do to the living and fresh flowers\nin the lines and meadows.  I was pleasantly surprised, therefore, by\nreceiving a letter from Miss Pole (who had always come in for a\nsupplementary week after my annual visit to Miss Jenkyns) proposing that\nI should go and stay with her; and then, in a couple of days after my\nacceptance, came a note from Miss Matty, in which, in a rather circuitous\nand very humble manner, she told me how much pleasure I should confer if\nI could spend a week or two with her, either before or after I had been\nat Miss Pole’s; “for,” she said, “since my dear sister’s death I am well\naware I have no attractions to offer; it is only to the kindness of my\nfriends that I can owe their company.”\n\nOf course I promised to come to dear Miss Matty as soon as I had ended my\nvisit to Miss Pole; and the day after my arrival at Cranford I went to\nsee her, much wondering what the house would be like without Miss\nJenkyns, and rather dreading the changed aspect of things.  Miss Matty\nbegan to cry as soon as she saw me.  She was evidently nervous from\nhaving anticipated my call.  I comforted her as well as I could; and I\nfound the best consolation I could give was the honest praise that came\nfrom my heart as I spoke of the deceased.  Miss Matty slowly shook her\nhead over each virtue as it was named and attributed to her sister; and\nat last she could not restrain the tears which had long been silently\nflowing, but hid her face behind her handkerchief and sobbed aloud.\n\n“Dear Miss Matty,” said I, taking her hand—for indeed I did not know in\nwhat way to tell her how sorry I was for her, left deserted in the world.\nShe put down her handkerchief and said—\n\n“My dear, I’d rather you did not call me Matty.  She did not like it; but\nI did many a thing she did not like, I’m afraid—and now she’s gone!  If\nyou please, my love, will you call me Matilda?”\n\nI promised faithfully, and began to practise the new name with Miss Pole\nthat very day; and, by degrees, Miss Matilda’s feeling on the subject was\nknown through Cranford, and we all tried to drop the more familiar name,\nbut with so little success that by-and-by we gave up the attempt.\n\nMy visit to Miss Pole was very quiet.  Miss Jenkyns had so long taken the\nlead in Cranford that now she was gone, they hardly knew how to give a\nparty.  The Honourable Mrs Jamieson, to whom Miss Jenkyns herself had\nalways yielded the post of honour, was fat and inert, and very much at\nthe mercy of her old servants.  If they chose that she should give a\nparty, they reminded her of the necessity for so doing: if not, she let\nit alone.  There was all the more time for me to hear old-world stories\nfrom Miss Pole, while she sat knitting, and I making my father’s shirts.\nI always took a quantity of plain sewing to Cranford; for, as we did not\nread much, or walk much, I found it a capital time to get through my\nwork.  One of Miss Pole’s stories related to a shadow of a love affair\nthat was dimly perceived or suspected long years before.\n\nPresently, the time arrived when I was to remove to Miss Matilda’s house.\nI found her timid and anxious about the arrangements for my comfort.\nMany a time, while I was unpacking, did she come backwards and forwards\nto stir the fire which burned all the worse for being so frequently\npoked.\n\n“Have you drawers enough, dear?” asked she.  “I don’t know exactly how my\nsister used to arrange them.  She had capital methods.  I am sure she\nwould have trained a servant in a week to make a better fire than this,\nand Fanny has been with me four months.”\n\nThis subject of servants was a standing grievance, and I could not wonder\nmuch at it; for if gentlemen were scarce, and almost unheard of in the\n“genteel society” of Cranford, they or their counterparts—handsome young\nmen—abounded in the lower classes.  The pretty neat servant-maids had\ntheir choice of desirable “followers”; and their mistresses, without\nhaving the sort of mysterious dread of men and matrimony that Miss\nMatilda had, might well feel a little anxious lest the heads of their\ncomely maids should be turned by the joiner, or the butcher, or the\ngardener, who were obliged, by their callings, to come to the house, and\nwho, as ill-luck would have it, were generally handsome and unmarried.\nFanny’s lovers, if she had any—and Miss Matilda suspected her of so many\nflirtations that, if she had not been very pretty, I should have doubted\nher having one—were a constant anxiety to her mistress.  She was\nforbidden, by the articles of her engagement, to have “followers”; and\nthough she had answered, innocently enough, doubling up the hem of her\napron as she spoke, “Please, ma’am, I never had more than one at a time,”\nMiss Matty prohibited that one.  But a vision of a man seemed to haunt\nthe kitchen.  Fanny assured me that it was all fancy, or else I should\nhave said myself that I had seen a man’s coat-tails whisk into the\nscullery once, when I went on an errand into the store-room at night; and\nanother evening, when, our watches having stopped, I went to look at the\nclock, there was a very odd appearance, singularly like a young man\nsqueezed up between the clock and the back of the open kitchen-door: and\nI thought Fanny snatched up the candle very hastily, so as to throw the\nshadow on the clock face, while she very positively told me the time\nhalf-an-hour too early, as we found out afterwards by the church clock.\nBut I did not add to Miss Matty’s anxieties by naming my suspicions,\nespecially as Fanny said to me, the next day, that it was such a queer\nkitchen for having odd shadows about it, she really was almost afraid to\nstay; “for you know, miss,” she added, “I don’t see a creature from six\no’clock tea, till Missus rings the bell for prayers at ten.”\n\nHowever, it so fell out that Fanny had to leave and Miss Matilda begged\nme to stay and “settle her” with the new maid; to which I consented,\nafter I had heard from my father that he did not want me at home.  The\nnew servant was a rough, honest-looking, country girl, who had only lived\nin a farm place before; but I liked her looks when she came to be hired;\nand I promised Miss Matilda to put her in the ways of the house.  The\nsaid ways were religiously such as Miss Matilda thought her sister would\napprove.  Many a domestic rule and regulation had been a subject of\nplaintive whispered murmur to me during Miss Jenkyns’s life; but now that\nshe was gone, I do not think that even I, who was a favourite, durst have\nsuggested an alteration.  To give an instance: we constantly adhered to\nthe forms which were observed, at meal-times, in “my father, the rector’s\nhouse.”  Accordingly, we had always wine and dessert; but the decanters\nwere only filled when there was a party, and what remained was seldom\ntouched, though we had two wine-glasses apiece every day after dinner,\nuntil the next festive occasion arrived, when the state of the remainder\nwine was examined into in a family council.  The dregs were often given\nto the poor: but occasionally, when a good deal had been left at the last\nparty (five months ago, it might be), it was added to some of a fresh\nbottle, brought up from the cellar.  I fancy poor Captain Brown did not\nmuch like wine, for I noticed he never finished his first glass, and most\nmilitary men take several.  Then, as to our dessert, Miss Jenkyns used to\ngather currants and gooseberries for it herself, which I sometimes\nthought would have tasted better fresh from the trees; but then, as Miss\nJenkyns observed, there would have been nothing for dessert in\nsummer-time.  As it was, we felt very genteel with our two glasses\napiece, and a dish of gooseberries at the top, of currants and biscuits\nat the sides, and two decanters at the bottom.  When oranges came in, a\ncurious proceeding was gone through.  Miss Jenkyns did not like to cut\nthe fruit; for, as she observed, the juice all ran out nobody knew where;\nsucking (only I think she used some more recondite word) was in fact the\nonly way of enjoying oranges; but then there was the unpleasant\nassociation with a ceremony frequently gone through by little babies; and\nso, after dessert, in orange season, Miss Jenkyns and Miss Matty used to\nrise up, possess themselves each of an orange in silence, and withdraw to\nthe privacy of their own rooms to indulge in sucking oranges.\n\nI had once or twice tried, on such occasions, to prevail on Miss Matty to\nstay, and had succeeded in her sister’s lifetime.  I held up a screen,\nand did not look, and, as she said, she tried not to make the noise very\noffensive; but now that she was left alone, she seemed quite horrified\nwhen I begged her to remain with me in the warm dining-parlour, and enjoy\nher orange as she liked best.  And so it was in everything.  Miss\nJenkyns’s rules were made more stringent than ever, because the framer of\nthem was gone where there could be no appeal.  In all things else Miss\nMatilda was meek and undecided to a fault.  I have heard Fanny turn her\nround twenty times in a morning about dinner, just as the little hussy\nchose; and I sometimes fancied she worked on Miss Matilda’s weakness in\norder to bewilder her, and to make her feel more in the power of her\nclever servant.  I determined that I would not leave her till I had seen\nwhat sort of a person Martha was; and, if I found her trustworthy, I\nwould tell her not to trouble her mistress with every little decision.\n\nMartha was blunt and plain-spoken to a fault; otherwise she was a brisk,\nwell-meaning, but very ignorant girl.  She had not been with us a week\nbefore Miss Matilda and I were astounded one morning by the receipt of a\nletter from a cousin of hers, who had been twenty or thirty years in\nIndia, and who had lately, as we had seen by the “Army List,” returned to\nEngland, bringing with him an invalid wife who had never been introduced\nto her English relations.  Major Jenkyns wrote to propose that he and his\nwife should spend a night at Cranford, on his way to Scotland—at the inn,\nif it did not suit Miss Matilda to receive them into her house; in which\ncase they should hope to be with her as much as possible during the day.\nOf course it _must_ suit her, as she said; for all Cranford knew that she\nhad her sister’s bedroom at liberty; but I am sure she wished the Major\nhad stopped in India and forgotten his cousins out and out.\n\n“Oh! how must I manage?” asked she helplessly.  “If Deborah had been\nalive she would have known what to do with a gentleman-visitor.  Must I\nput razors in his dressing-room?  Dear! dear! and I’ve got none.  Deborah\nwould have had them.  And slippers, and coat-brushes?”  I suggested that\nprobably he would bring all these things with him.  “And after dinner,\nhow am I to know when to get up and leave him to his wine?  Deborah would\nhave done it so well; she would have been quite in her element.  Will he\nwant coffee, do you think?”  I undertook the management of the coffee,\nand told her I would instruct Martha in the art of waiting—in which it\nmust be owned she was terribly deficient—and that I had no doubt Major\nand Mrs Jenkyns would understand the quiet mode in which a lady lived by\nherself in a country town.  But she was sadly fluttered.  I made her\nempty her decanters and bring up two fresh bottles of wine.  I wished I\ncould have prevented her from being present at my instructions to Martha,\nfor she frequently cut in with some fresh direction, muddling the poor\ngirl’s mind as she stood open-mouthed, listening to us both.\n\n“Hand the vegetables round,” said I (foolishly, I see now—for it was\naiming at more than we could accomplish with quietness and simplicity);\nand then, seeing her look bewildered, I added, “take the vegetables round\nto people, and let them help themselves.”\n\n“And mind you go first to the ladies,” put in Miss Matilda.  “Always go\nto the ladies before gentlemen when you are waiting.”\n\n“I’ll do it as you tell me, ma’am,” said Martha; “but I like lads best.”\n\nWe felt very uncomfortable and shocked at this speech of Martha’s, yet I\ndon’t think she meant any harm; and, on the whole, she attended very well\nto our directions, except that she “nudged” the Major when he did not\nhelp himself as soon as she expected to the potatoes, while she was\nhanding them round.\n\nThe major and his wife were quiet unpretending people enough when they\ndid come; languid, as all East Indians are, I suppose.  We were rather\ndismayed at their bringing two servants with them, a Hindoo body-servant\nfor the Major, and a steady elderly maid for his wife; but they slept at\nthe inn, and took off a good deal of the responsibility by attending\ncarefully to their master’s and mistress’s comfort.  Martha, to be sure,\nhad never ended her staring at the East Indian’s white turban and brown\ncomplexion, and I saw that Miss Matilda shrunk away from him a little as\nhe waited at dinner.  Indeed, she asked me, when they were gone, if he\ndid not remind me of Blue Beard?  On the whole, the visit was most\nsatisfactory, and is a subject of conversation even now with Miss\nMatilda; at the time it greatly excited Cranford, and even stirred up the\napathetic and Honourable Mrs Jamieson to some expression of interest,\nwhen I went to call and thank her for the kind answers she had vouchsafed\nto Miss Matilda’s inquiries as to the arrangement of a gentleman’s\ndressing-room—answers which I must confess she had given in the wearied\nmanner of the Scandinavian prophetess—\n\n                       “Leave me, leave me to repose.”\n\nAnd _now_ I come to the love affair.\n\nIt seems that Miss Pole had a cousin, once or twice removed, who had\noffered to Miss Matty long ago.  Now this cousin lived four or five miles\nfrom Cranford on his own estate; but his property was not large enough to\nentitle him to rank higher than a yeoman; or rather, with something of\nthe “pride which apes humility,” he had refused to push himself on, as so\nmany of his class had done, into the ranks of the squires.  He would not\nallow himself to be called Thomas Holbrook, _Esq._; he even sent back\nletters with this address, telling the post-mistress at Cranford that his\nname was _Mr_ Thomas Holbrook, yeoman.  He rejected all domestic\ninnovations; he would have the house door stand open in summer and shut\nin winter, without knocker or bell to summon a servant.  The closed fist\nor the knob of a stick did this office for him if he found the door\nlocked.  He despised every refinement which had not its root deep down in\nhumanity.  If people were not ill, he saw no necessity for moderating his\nvoice.  He spoke the dialect of the country in perfection, and constantly\nused it in conversation; although Miss Pole (who gave me these\nparticulars) added, that he read aloud more beautifully and with more\nfeeling than any one she had ever heard, except the late rector.\n\n“And how came Miss Matilda not to marry him?” asked I.\n\n“Oh, I don’t know.  She was willing enough, I think; but you know Cousin\nThomas would not have been enough of a gentleman for the rector and Miss\nJenkyns.”\n\n“Well! but they were not to marry him,” said I, impatiently.\n\n“No; but they did not like Miss Matty to marry below her rank.  You know\nshe was the rector’s daughter, and somehow they are related to Sir Peter\nArley: Miss Jenkyns thought a deal of that.”\n\n“Poor Miss Matty!” said I.\n\n“Nay, now, I don’t know anything more than that he offered and was\nrefused.  Miss Matty might not like him—and Miss Jenkyns might never have\nsaid a word—it is only a guess of mine.”\n\n“Has she never seen him since?” I inquired.\n\n“No, I think not.  You see Woodley, Cousin Thomas’s house, lies half-way\nbetween Cranford and Misselton; and I know he made Misselton his\nmarket-town very soon after he had offered to Miss Matty; and I don’t\nthink he has been into Cranford above once or twice since—once, when I\nwas walking with Miss Matty, in High Street, and suddenly she darted from\nme, and went up Shire Lane.  A few minutes after I was startled by\nmeeting Cousin Thomas.”\n\n“How old is he?” I asked, after a pause of castle-building.\n\n“He must be about seventy, I think, my dear,” said Miss Pole, blowing up\nmy castle, as if by gun-powder, into small fragments.\n\nVery soon after—at least during my long visit to Miss Matilda—I had the\nopportunity of seeing Mr Holbrook; seeing, too, his first encounter with\nhis former love, after thirty or forty years’ separation.  I was helping\nto decide whether any of the new assortment of coloured silks which they\nhad just received at the shop would do to match a grey and black\nmousseline-delaine that wanted a new breadth, when a tall, thin, Don\nQuixote-looking old man came into the shop for some woollen gloves.  I\nhad never seen the person (who was rather striking) before, and I watched\nhim rather attentively while Miss Matty listened to the shopman.  The\nstranger wore a blue coat with brass buttons, drab breeches, and gaiters,\nand drummed with his fingers on the counter until he was attended to.\nWhen he answered the shop-boy’s question, “What can I have the pleasure\nof showing you to-day, sir?” I saw Miss Matilda start, and then suddenly\nsit down; and instantly I guessed who it was.  She had made some inquiry\nwhich had to be carried round to the other shopman.\n\n“Miss Jenkyns wants the black sarsenet two-and-twopence the yard”; and Mr\nHolbrook had caught the name, and was across the shop in two strides.\n\n“Matty—Miss Matilda—Miss Jenkyns!  God bless my soul!  I should not have\nknown you.  How are you? how are you?”  He kept shaking her hand in a way\nwhich proved the warmth of his friendship; but he repeated so often, as\nif to himself, “I should not have known you!” that any sentimental\nromance which I might be inclined to build was quite done away with by\nhis manner.\n\nHowever, he kept talking to us all the time we were in the shop; and then\nwaving the shopman with the unpurchased gloves on one side, with “Another\ntime, sir! another time!” he walked home with us.  I am happy to say my\nclient, Miss Matilda, also left the shop in an equally bewildered state,\nnot having purchased either green or red silk.  Mr Holbrook was evidently\nfull with honest loud-spoken joy at meeting his old love again; he\ntouched on the changes that had taken place; he even spoke of Miss\nJenkyns as “Your poor sister!  Well, well! we have all our faults”; and\nbade us good-bye with many a hope that he should soon see Miss Matty\nagain.  She went straight to her room, and never came back till our early\ntea-time, when I thought she looked as if she had been crying.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV—A VISIT TO AN OLD BACHELOR\n\n\nA FEW days after, a note came from Mr Holbrook, asking us—impartially\nasking both of us—in a formal, old-fashioned style, to spend a day at his\nhouse—a long June day—for it was June now.  He named that he had also\ninvited his cousin, Miss Pole; so that we might join in a fly, which\ncould be put up at his house.\n\nI expected Miss Matty to jump at this invitation; but, no!  Miss Pole and\nI had the greatest difficulty in persuading her to go.  She thought it\nwas improper; and was even half annoyed when we utterly ignored the idea\nof any impropriety in her going with two other ladies to see her old\nlover.  Then came a more serious difficulty.  She did not think Deborah\nwould have liked her to go.  This took us half a day’s good hard talking\nto get over; but, at the first sentence of relenting, I seized the\nopportunity, and wrote and despatched an acceptance in her name—fixing\nday and hour, that all might be decided and done with.\n\nThe next morning she asked me if I would go down to the shop with her;\nand there, after much hesitation, we chose out three caps to be sent home\nand tried on, that the most becoming might be selected to take with us on\nThursday.\n\nShe was in a state of silent agitation all the way to Woodley.  She had\nevidently never been there before; and, although she little dreamt I knew\nanything of her early story, I could perceive she was in a tremor at the\nthought of seeing the place which might have been her home, and round\nwhich it is probable that many of her innocent girlish imaginations had\nclustered.  It was a long drive there, through paved jolting lanes.  Miss\nMatilda sat bolt upright, and looked wistfully out of the windows as we\ndrew near the end of our journey.  The aspect of the country was quiet\nand pastoral.  Woodley stood among fields; and there was an old-fashioned\ngarden where roses and currant-bushes touched each other, and where the\nfeathery asparagus formed a pretty background to the pinks and\ngilly-flowers; there was no drive up to the door.  We got out at a little\ngate, and walked up a straight box-edged path.\n\n“My cousin might make a drive, I think,” said Miss Pole, who was afraid\nof ear-ache, and had only her cap on.\n\n“I think it is very pretty,” said Miss Matty, with a soft plaintiveness\nin her voice, and almost in a whisper, for just then Mr Holbrook appeared\nat the door, rubbing his hands in very effervescence of hospitality.  He\nlooked more like my idea of Don Quixote than ever, and yet the likeness\nwas only external.  His respectable housekeeper stood modestly at the\ndoor to bid us welcome; and, while she led the elder ladies upstairs to a\nbedroom, I begged to look about the garden.  My request evidently pleased\nthe old gentleman, who took me all round the place and showed me his\nsix-and-twenty cows, named after the different letters of the alphabet.\nAs we went along, he surprised me occasionally by repeating apt and\nbeautiful quotations from the poets, ranging easily from Shakespeare and\nGeorge Herbert to those of our own day.  He did this as naturally as if\nhe were thinking aloud, and their true and beautiful words were the best\nexpression he could find for what he was thinking or feeling.  To be sure\nhe called Byron “my Lord Byrron,” and pronounced the name of Goethe\nstrictly in accordance with the English sound of the letters—“As Goethe\nsays, ‘Ye ever-verdant palaces,’” &c.  Altogether, I never met with a\nman, before or since, who had spent so long a life in a secluded and not\nimpressive country, with ever-increasing delight in the daily and yearly\nchange of season and beauty.\n\nWhen he and I went in, we found that dinner was nearly ready in the\nkitchen—for so I suppose the room ought to be called, as there were oak\ndressers and cupboards all round, all over by the side of the fireplace,\nand only a small Turkey carpet in the middle of the flag-floor.  The room\nmight have been easily made into a handsome dark oak dining-parlour by\nremoving the oven and a few other appurtenances of a kitchen, which were\nevidently never used, the real cooking-place being at some distance.  The\nroom in which we were expected to sit was a stiffly-furnished, ugly\napartment; but that in which we did sit was what Mr Holbrook called the\ncounting-house, where he paid his labourers their weekly wages at a great\ndesk near the door.  The rest of the pretty sitting-room—looking into the\norchard, and all covered over with dancing tree-shadows—was filled with\nbooks.  They lay on the ground, they covered the walls, they strewed the\ntable.  He was evidently half ashamed and half proud of his extravagance\nin this respect.  They were of all kinds—poetry and wild weird tales\nprevailing.  He evidently chose his books in accordance with his own\ntastes, not because such and such were classical or established\nfavourites.\n\n“Ah!” he said, “we farmers ought not to have much time for reading; yet\nsomehow one can’t help it.”\n\n“What a pretty room!” said Miss Matty, _sotto voce_.\n\n“What a pleasant place!” said I, aloud, almost simultaneously.\n\n“Nay! if you like it,” replied he; “but can you sit on these great, black\nleather, three-cornered chairs?  I like it better than the best parlour;\nbut I thought ladies would take that for the smarter place.”\n\nIt was the smarter place, but, like most smart things, not at all pretty,\nor pleasant, or home-like; so, while we were at dinner, the servant-girl\ndusted and scrubbed the counting-house chairs, and we sat there all the\nrest of the day.\n\nWe had pudding before meat; and I thought Mr Holbrook was going to make\nsome apology for his old-fashioned ways, for he began—\n\n“I don’t know whether you like newfangled ways.”\n\n“Oh, not at all!” said Miss Matty.\n\n“No more do I,” said he.  “My house-keeper _will_ have these in her new\nfashion; or else I tell her that, when I was a young man, we used to keep\nstrictly to my father’s rule, ‘No broth, no ball; no ball, no beef’; and\nalways began dinner with broth.  Then we had suet puddings, boiled in the\nbroth with the beef: and then the meat itself.  If we did not sup our\nbroth, we had no ball, which we liked a deal better; and the beef came\nlast of all, and only those had it who had done justice to the broth and\nthe ball.  Now folks begin with sweet things, and turn their dinners\ntopsy-turvy.”\n\nWhen the ducks and green peas came, we looked at each other in dismay; we\nhad only two-pronged, black-handled forks.  It is true the steel was as\nbright as silver; but what were we to do?  Miss Matty picked up her peas,\none by one, on the point of the prongs, much as Aminé ate her grains of\nrice after her previous feast with the Ghoul.  Miss Pole sighed over her\ndelicate young peas as she left them on one side of her plate untasted,\nfor they _would_ drop between the prongs.  I looked at my host: the peas\nwere going wholesale into his capacious mouth, shovelled up by his large\nround-ended knife.  I saw, I imitated, I survived!  My friends, in spite\nof my precedent, could not muster up courage enough to do an ungenteel\nthing; and, if Mr Holbrook had not been so heartily hungry, he would\nprobably have seen that the good peas went away almost untouched.\n\nAfter dinner, a clay pipe was brought in, and a spittoon; and, asking us\nto retire to another room, where he would soon join us, if we disliked\ntobacco-smoke, he presented his pipe to Miss Matty, and requested her to\nfill the bowl.  This was a compliment to a lady in his youth; but it was\nrather inappropriate to propose it as an honour to Miss Matty, who had\nbeen trained by her sister to hold smoking of every kind in utter\nabhorrence.  But if it was a shock to her refinement, it was also a\ngratification to her feelings to be thus selected; so she daintily\nstuffed the strong tobacco into the pipe, and then we withdrew.\n\n“It is very pleasant dining with a bachelor,” said Miss Matty softly, as\nwe settled ourselves in the counting-house.  “I only hope it is not\nimproper; so many pleasant things are!”\n\n“What a number of books he has!” said Miss Pole, looking round the room.\n“And how dusty they are!”\n\n“I think it must be like one of the great Dr Johnson’s rooms,” said Miss\nMatty.  “What a superior man your cousin must be!”\n\n“Yes!” said Miss Pole, “he’s a great reader; but I am afraid he has got\ninto very uncouth habits with living alone.”\n\n“Oh! uncouth is too hard a word.  I should call him eccentric; very\nclever people always are!” replied Miss Matty.\n\nWhen Mr Holbrook returned, he proposed a walk in the fields; but the two\nelder ladies were afraid of damp, and dirt, and had only very unbecoming\ncalashes to put on over their caps; so they declined, and I was again his\ncompanion in a turn which he said he was obliged to take to see after his\nmen.  He strode along, either wholly forgetting my existence, or soothed\ninto silence by his pipe—and yet it was not silence exactly.  He walked\nbefore me with a stooping gait, his hands clasped behind him; and, as\nsome tree or cloud, or glimpse of distant upland pastures, struck him, he\nquoted poetry to himself, saying it out loud in a grand sonorous voice,\nwith just the emphasis that true feeling and appreciation give.  We came\nupon an old cedar tree, which stood at one end of the house—\n\n    “The cedar spreads his dark-green layers of shade.”\n\n“Capital term—‘layers!’  Wonderful man!”  I did not know whether he was\nspeaking to me or not; but I put in an assenting “wonderful,” although I\nknew nothing about it, just because I was tired of being forgotten, and\nof being consequently silent.\n\nHe turned sharp round.  “Ay! you may say ‘wonderful.’  Why, when I saw\nthe review of his poems in _Blackwood_, I set off within an hour, and\nwalked seven miles to Misselton (for the horses were not in the way) and\nordered them.  Now, what colour are ash-buds in March?”\n\nIs the man going mad? thought I.  He is very like Don Quixote.\n\n“What colour are they, I say?” repeated he vehemently.\n\n“I am sure I don’t know, sir,” said I, with the meekness of ignorance.\n\n“I knew you didn’t.  No more did I—an old fool that I am!—till this young\nman comes and tells me.  Black as ash-buds in March.  And I’ve lived all\nmy life in the country; more shame for me not to know.  Black: they are\njet-black, madam.”  And he went off again, swinging along to the music of\nsome rhyme he had got hold of.\n\nWhen we came back, nothing would serve him but he must read us the poems\nhe had been speaking of; and Miss Pole encouraged him in his proposal, I\nthought, because she wished me to hear his beautiful reading, of which\nshe had boasted; but she afterwards said it was because she had got to a\ndifficult part of her crochet, and wanted to count her stitches without\nhaving to talk.  Whatever he had proposed would have been right to Miss\nMatty; although she did fall sound asleep within five minutes after he\nhad begun a long poem, called “Locksley Hall,” and had a comfortable nap,\nunobserved, till he ended; when the cessation of his voice wakened her\nup, and she said, feeling that something was expected, and that Miss Pole\nwas counting—\n\n“What a pretty book!”\n\n“Pretty, madam! it’s beautiful!  Pretty, indeed!”\n\n“Oh yes!  I meant beautiful!” said she, fluttered at his disapproval of\nher word.  “It is so like that beautiful poem of Dr Johnson’s my sister\nused to read—I forget the name of it; what was it, my dear?” turning to\nme.\n\n“Which do you mean, ma’am?  What was it about?”\n\n“I don’t remember what it was about, and I’ve quite forgotten what the\nname of it was; but it was written by Dr Johnson, and was very beautiful,\nand very like what Mr Holbrook has just been reading.”\n\n“I don’t remember it,” said he reflectively.  “But I don’t know Dr\nJohnson’s poems well.  I must read them.”\n\nAs we were getting into the fly to return, I heard Mr Holbrook say he\nshould call on the ladies soon, and inquire how they got home; and this\nevidently pleased and fluttered Miss Matty at the time he said it; but\nafter we had lost sight of the old house among the trees her sentiments\ntowards the master of it were gradually absorbed into a distressing\nwonder as to whether Martha had broken her word, and seized on the\nopportunity of her mistress’s absence to have a “follower.”  Martha\nlooked good, and steady, and composed enough, as she came to help us out;\nshe was always careful of Miss Matty, and to-night she made use of this\nunlucky speech—\n\n“Eh! dear ma’am, to think of your going out in an evening in such a thin\nshawl!  It’s no better than muslin.  At your age, ma’am, you should be\ncareful.”\n\n“My age!” said Miss Matty, almost speaking crossly, for her, for she was\nusually gentle—“My age!  Why, how old do you think I am, that you talk\nabout my age?”\n\n“Well, ma’am, I should say you were not far short of sixty: but folks’\nlooks is often against them—and I’m sure I meant no harm.”\n\n“Martha, I’m not yet fifty-two!” said Miss Matty, with grave emphasis;\nfor probably the remembrance of her youth had come very vividly before\nher this day, and she was annoyed at finding that golden time so far away\nin the past.\n\nBut she never spoke of any former and more intimate acquaintance with Mr\nHolbrook.  She had probably met with so little sympathy in her early\nlove, that she had shut it up close in her heart; and it was only by a\nsort of watching, which I could hardly avoid since Miss Pole’s\nconfidence, that I saw how faithful her poor heart had been in its sorrow\nand its silence.\n\nShe gave me some good reason for wearing her best cap every day, and sat\nnear the window, in spite of her rheumatism, in order to see, without\nbeing seen, down into the street.\n\nHe came.  He put his open palms upon his knees, which were far apart, as\nhe sat with his head bent down, whistling, after we had replied to his\ninquiries about our safe return.  Suddenly he jumped up—\n\n“Well, madam! have you any commands for Paris?  I am going there in a\nweek or two.”\n\n“To Paris!” we both exclaimed.\n\n“Yes, madam!  I’ve never been there, and always had a wish to go; and I\nthink if I don’t go soon, I mayn’t go at all; so as soon as the hay is\ngot in I shall go, before harvest time.”\n\nWe were so much astonished that we had no commissions.\n\nJust as he was going out of the room, he turned back, with his favourite\nexclamation—\n\n“God bless my soul, madam! but I nearly forgot half my errand.  Here are\nthe poems for you you admired so much the other evening at my house.”  He\ntugged away at a parcel in his coat-pocket.  “Good-bye, miss,” said he;\n“good-bye, Matty! take care of yourself.”  And he was gone.  But he had\ngiven her a book, and he had called her Matty, just as he used to do\nthirty years to.\n\n“I wish he would not go to Paris,” said Miss Matilda anxiously.  “I don’t\nbelieve frogs will agree with him; he used to have to be very careful\nwhat he ate, which was curious in so strong-looking a young man.”\n\nSoon after this I took my leave, giving many an injunction to Martha to\nlook after her mistress, and to let me know if she thought that Miss\nMatilda was not so well; in which case I would volunteer a visit to my\nold friend, without noticing Martha’s intelligence to her.\n\nAccordingly I received a line or two from Martha every now and then; and,\nabout November I had a note to say her mistress was “very low and sadly\noff her food”; and the account made me so uneasy that, although Martha\ndid not decidedly summon me, I packed up my things and went.\n\nI received a warm welcome, in spite of the little flurry produced by my\nimpromptu visit, for I had only been able to give a day’s notice.  Miss\nMatilda looked miserably ill; and I prepared to comfort and cosset her.\n\nI went down to have a private talk with Martha.\n\n“How long has your mistress been so poorly?” I asked, as I stood by the\nkitchen fire.\n\n“Well!  I think it’s better than a fortnight; it is, I know; it was one\nTuesday, after Miss Pole had been, that she went into this moping way.  I\nthought she was tired, and it would go off with a night’s rest; but no!\nshe has gone on and on ever since, till I thought it my duty to write to\nyou, ma’am.”\n\n“You did quite right, Martha.  It is a comfort to think she has so\nfaithful a servant about her.  And I hope you find your place\ncomfortable?”\n\n“Well, ma’am, missus is very kind, and there’s plenty to eat and drink,\nand no more work but what I can do easily—but—” Martha hesitated.\n\n“But what, Martha?”\n\n“Why, it seems so hard of missus not to let me have any followers;\nthere’s such lots of young fellows in the town; and many a one has as\nmuch as offered to keep company with me; and I may never be in such a\nlikely place again, and it’s like wasting an opportunity.  Many a girl as\nI know would have ’em unbeknownst to missus; but I’ve given my word, and\nI’ll stick to it; or else this is just the house for missus never to be\nthe wiser if they did come: and it’s such a capable kitchen—there’s such\ndark corners in it—I’d be bound to hide any one.  I counted up last\nSunday night—for I’ll not deny I was crying because I had to shut the\ndoor in Jem Hearn’s face, and he’s a steady young man, fit for any girl;\nonly I had given missus my word.”  Martha was all but crying again; and I\nhad little comfort to give her, for I knew, from old experience, of the\nhorror with which both the Miss Jenkynses looked upon “followers”; and in\nMiss Matty’s present nervous state this dread was not likely to be\nlessened.\n\nI went to see Miss Pole the next day, and took her completely by\nsurprise, for she had not been to see Miss Matilda for two days.\n\n“And now I must go back with you, my dear, for I promised to let her know\nhow Thomas Holbrook went on; and, I’m sorry to say, his housekeeper has\nsent me word to-day that he hasn’t long to live.  Poor Thomas! that\njourney to Paris was quite too much for him.  His housekeeper says he has\nhardly ever been round his fields since, but just sits with his hands on\nhis knees in the counting-house, not reading or anything, but only saying\nwhat a wonderful city Paris was!  Paris has much to answer for if it’s\nkilled my cousin Thomas, for a better man never lived.”\n\n“Does Miss Matilda know of his illness?” asked I—a new light as to the\ncause of her indisposition dawning upon me.\n\n“Dear! to be sure, yes!  Has not she told you?  I let her know a\nfortnight ago, or more, when first I heard of it.  How odd she shouldn’t\nhave told you!”\n\nNot at all, I thought; but I did not say anything.  I felt almost guilty\nof having spied too curiously into that tender heart, and I was not going\nto speak of its secrets—hidden, Miss Matty believed, from all the world.\nI ushered Miss Pole into Miss Matilda’s little drawing-room, and then\nleft them alone.  But I was not surprised when Martha came to my bedroom\ndoor, to ask me to go down to dinner alone, for that missus had one of\nher bad headaches.  She came into the drawing-room at tea-time, but it\nwas evidently an effort to her; and, as if to make up for some\nreproachful feeling against her late sister, Miss Jenkyns, which had been\ntroubling her all the afternoon, and for which she now felt penitent, she\nkept telling me how good and how clever Deborah was in her youth; how she\nused to settle what gowns they were to wear at all the parties (faint,\nghostly ideas of grim parties, far away in the distance, when Miss Matty\nand Miss Pole were young!); and how Deborah and her mother had started\nthe benefit society for the poor, and taught girls cooking and plain\nsewing; and how Deborah had once danced with a lord; and how she used to\nvisit at Sir Peter Arley’s, and tried to remodel the quiet rectory\nestablishment on the plans of Arley Hall, where they kept thirty\nservants; and how she had nursed Miss Matty through a long, long illness,\nof which I had never heard before, but which I now dated in my own mind\nas following the dismissal of the suit of Mr Holbrook.  So we talked\nsoftly and quietly of old times through the long November evening.\n\nThe next day Miss Pole brought us word that Mr Holbrook was dead.  Miss\nMatty heard the news in silence; in fact, from the account of the\nprevious day, it was only what we had to expect.  Miss Pole kept calling\nupon us for some expression of regret, by asking if it was not sad that\nhe was gone, and saying—\n\n“To think of that pleasant day last June, when he seemed so well!  And he\nmight have lived this dozen years if he had not gone to that wicked\nParis, where they are always having revolutions.”\n\nShe paused for some demonstration on our part.  I saw Miss Matty could\nnot speak, she was trembling so nervously; so I said what I really felt;\nand after a call of some duration—all the time of which I have no doubt\nMiss Pole thought Miss Matty received the news very calmly—our visitor\ntook her leave.\n\nMiss Matty made a strong effort to conceal her feelings—a concealment she\npractised even with me, for she has never alluded to Mr Holbrook again,\nalthough the book he gave her lies with her Bible on the little table by\nher bedside.  She did not think I heard her when she asked the little\nmilliner of Cranford to make her caps something like the Honourable Mrs\nJamieson’s, or that I noticed the reply—\n\n“But she wears widows’ caps, ma’am?”\n\n“Oh!  I only meant something in that style; not widows’, of course, but\nrather like Mrs Jamieson’s.”\n\nThis effort at concealment was the beginning of the tremulous motion of\nhead and hands which I have seen ever since in Miss Matty.\n\nThe evening of the day on which we heard of Mr Holbrook’s death, Miss\nMatilda was very silent and thoughtful; after prayers she called Martha\nback and then she stood uncertain what to say.\n\n“Martha!” she said, at last, “you are young”—and then she made so long a\npause that Martha, to remind her of her half-finished sentence, dropped a\ncurtsey, and said—\n\n“Yes, please, ma’am; two-and-twenty last third of October, please,\nma’am.”\n\n“And, perhaps, Martha, you may some time meet with a young man you like,\nand who likes you.  I did say you were not to have followers; but if you\nmeet with such a young man, and tell me, and I find he is respectable, I\nhave no objection to his coming to see you once a week.  God forbid!”\nsaid she in a low voice, “that I should grieve any young hearts.”  She\nspoke as if she were providing for some distant contingency, and was\nrather startled when Martha made her ready eager answer—\n\n“Please, ma’am, there’s Jem Hearn, and he’s a joiner making\nthree-and-sixpence a-day, and six foot one in his stocking-feet, please,\nma’am; and if you’ll ask about him to-morrow morning, every one will give\nhim a character for steadiness; and he’ll be glad enough to come\nto-morrow night, I’ll be bound.”\n\nThough Miss Matty was startled, she submitted to Fate and Love.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V—OLD LETTERS\n\n\nI HAVE often noticed that almost every one has his own individual small\neconomies—careful habits of saving fractions of pennies in some one\npeculiar direction—any disturbance of which annoys him more than spending\nshillings or pounds on some real extravagance.  An old gentleman of my\nacquaintance, who took the intelligence of the failure of a Joint-Stock\nBank, in which some of his money was invested, with stoical mildness,\nworried his family all through a long summer’s day because one of them\nhad torn (instead of cutting) out the written leaves of his now useless\nbank-book; of course, the corresponding pages at the other end came out\nas well, and this little unnecessary waste of paper (his private economy)\nchafed him more than all the loss of his money.  Envelopes fretted his\nsoul terribly when they first came in; the only way in which he could\nreconcile himself to such waste of his cherished article was by patiently\nturning inside out all that were sent to him, and so making them serve\nagain.  Even now, though tamed by age, I see him casting wistful glances\nat his daughters when they send a whole inside of a half-sheet of note\npaper, with the three lines of acceptance to an invitation, written on\nonly one of the sides.  I am not above owning that I have this human\nweakness myself.  String is my foible.  My pockets get full of little\nhanks of it, picked up and twisted together, ready for uses that never\ncome.  I am seriously annoyed if any one cuts the string of a parcel\ninstead of patiently and faithfully undoing it fold by fold.  How people\ncan bring themselves to use india-rubber rings, which are a sort of\ndeification of string, as lightly as they do, I cannot imagine.  To me an\nindia-rubber ring is a precious treasure.  I have one which is not\nnew—one that I picked up off the floor nearly six years ago.  I have\nreally tried to use it, but my heart failed me, and I could not commit\nthe extravagance.\n\nSmall pieces of butter grieve others.  They cannot attend to conversation\nbecause of the annoyance occasioned by the habit which some people have\nof invariably taking more butter than they want.  Have you not seen the\nanxious look (almost mesmeric) which such persons fix on the article?\nThey would feel it a relief if they might bury it out of their sight by\npopping it into their own mouths and swallowing it down; and they are\nreally made happy if the person on whose plate it lies unused suddenly\nbreaks off a piece of toast (which he does not want at all) and eats up\nhis butter.  They think that this is not waste.\n\nNow Miss Matty Jenkyns was chary of candles.  We had many devices to use\nas few as possible.  In the winter afternoons she would sit knitting for\ntwo or three hours—she could do this in the dark, or by firelight—and\nwhen I asked if I might not ring for candles to finish stitching my\nwristbands, she told me to “keep blind man’s holiday.”  They were usually\nbrought in with tea; but we only burnt one at a time.  As we lived in\nconstant preparation for a friend who might come in any evening (but who\nnever did), it required some contrivance to keep our two candles of the\nsame length, ready to be lighted, and to look as if we burnt two always.\nThe candles took it in turns; and, whatever we might be talking about or\ndoing, Miss Matty’s eyes were habitually fixed upon the candle, ready to\njump up and extinguish it and to light the other before they had become\ntoo uneven in length to be restored to equality in the course of the\nevening.\n\nOne night, I remember this candle economy particularly annoyed me.  I had\nbeen very much tired of my compulsory “blind man’s holiday,” especially\nas Miss Matty had fallen asleep, and I did not like to stir the fire and\nrun the risk of awakening her; so I could not even sit on the rug, and\nscorch myself with sewing by firelight, according to my usual custom.  I\nfancied Miss Matty must be dreaming of her early life; for she spoke one\nor two words in her uneasy sleep bearing reference to persons who were\ndead long before.  When Martha brought in the lighted candle and tea,\nMiss Matty started into wakefulness, with a strange, bewildered look\naround, as if we were not the people she expected to see about her.\nThere was a little sad expression that shadowed her face as she\nrecognised me; but immediately afterwards she tried to give me her usual\nsmile.  All through tea-time her talk ran upon the days of her childhood\nand youth.  Perhaps this reminded her of the desirableness of looking\nover all the old family letters, and destroying such as ought not to be\nallowed to fall into the hands of strangers; for she had often spoken of\nthe necessity of this task, but had always shrunk from it, with a timid\ndread of something painful.  To-night, however, she rose up after tea and\nwent for them—in the dark; for she piqued herself on the precise neatness\nof all her chamber arrangements, and used to look uneasily at me when I\nlighted a bed-candle to go to another room for anything.  When she\nreturned there was a faint, pleasant smell of Tonquin beans in the room.\nI had always noticed this scent about any of the things which had\nbelonged to her mother; and many of the letters were addressed to\nher—yellow bundles of love-letters, sixty or seventy years old.\n\nMiss Matty undid the packet with a sigh; but she stifled it directly, as\nif it were hardly right to regret the flight of time, or of life either.\nWe agreed to look them over separately, each taking a different letter\nout of the same bundle and describing its contents to the other before\ndestroying it.  I never knew what sad work the reading of old-letters was\nbefore that evening, though I could hardly tell why.  The letters were as\nhappy as letters could be—at least those early letters were.  There was\nin them a vivid and intense sense of the present time, which seemed so\nstrong and full, as if it could never pass away, and as if the warm,\nliving hearts that so expressed themselves could never die, and be as\nnothing to the sunny earth.  I should have felt less melancholy, I\nbelieve, if the letters had been more so.  I saw the tears stealing down\nthe well-worn furrows of Miss Matty’s cheeks, and her spectacles often\nwanted wiping.  I trusted at last that she would light the other candle,\nfor my own eyes were rather dim, and I wanted more light to see the pale,\nfaded ink; but no, even through her tears, she saw and remembered her\nlittle economical ways.\n\nThe earliest set of letters were two bundles tied together, and ticketed\n(in Miss Jenkyns’s handwriting) “Letters interchanged between my\never-honoured father and my dearly-beloved mother, prior to their\nmarriage, in July 1774.”  I should guess that the rector of Cranford was\nabout twenty-seven years of age when he wrote those letters; and Miss\nMatty told me that her mother was just eighteen at the time of her\nwedding.  With my idea of the rector derived from a picture in the\ndining-parlour, stiff and stately, in a huge full-bottomed wig, with\ngown, cassock, and bands, and his hand upon a copy of the only sermon he\never published—it was strange to read these letters.  They were full of\neager, passionate ardour; short homely sentences, right fresh from the\nheart (very different from the grand Latinised, Johnsonian style of the\nprinted sermon preached before some judge at assize time).  His letters\nwere a curious contrast to those of his girl-bride.  She was evidently\nrather annoyed at his demands upon her for expressions of love, and could\nnot quite understand what he meant by repeating the same thing over in so\nmany different ways; but what she was quite clear about was a longing for\na white “Paduasoy”—whatever that might be; and six or seven letters were\nprincipally occupied in asking her lover to use his influence with her\nparents (who evidently kept her in good order) to obtain this or that\narticle of dress, more especially the white “Paduasoy.”  He cared nothing\nhow she was dressed; she was always lovely enough for him, as he took\npains to assure her, when she begged him to express in his answers a\npredilection for particular pieces of finery, in order that she might\nshow what he said to her parents.  But at length he seemed to find out\nthat she would not be married till she had a “trousseau” to her mind; and\nthen he sent her a letter, which had evidently accompanied a whole box\nfull of finery, and in which he requested that she might be dressed in\neverything her heart desired.  This was the first letter, ticketed in a\nfrail, delicate hand, “From my dearest John.”  Shortly afterwards they\nwere married, I suppose, from the intermission in their correspondence.\n\n“We must burn them, I think,” said Miss Matty, looking doubtfully at me.\n“No one will care for them when I am gone.”  And one by one she dropped\nthem into the middle of the fire, watching each blaze up, die out, and\nrise away, in faint, white, ghostly semblance, up the chimney, before she\ngave another to the same fate.  The room was light enough now; but I,\nlike her, was fascinated into watching the destruction of those letters,\ninto which the honest warmth of a manly heart had been poured forth.\n\nThe next letter, likewise docketed by Miss Jenkyns, was endorsed, “Letter\nof pious congratulation and exhortation from my venerable grandfather to\nmy beloved mother, on occasion of my own birth.  Also some practical\nremarks on the desirability of keeping warm the extremities of infants,\nfrom my excellent grandmother.”\n\nThe first part was, indeed, a severe and forcible picture of the\nresponsibilities of mothers, and a warning against the evils that were in\nthe world, and lying in ghastly wait for the little baby of two days old.\nHis wife did not write, said the old gentleman, because he had forbidden\nit, she being indisposed with a sprained ankle, which (he said) quite\nincapacitated her from holding a pen.  However, at the foot of the page\nwas a small “T.O.,” and on turning it over, sure enough, there was a\nletter to “my dear, dearest Molly,” begging her, when she left her room,\nwhatever she did, to go _up_ stairs before going _down_: and telling her\nto wrap her baby’s feet up in flannel, and keep it warm by the fire,\nalthough it was summer, for babies were so tender.\n\nIt was pretty to see from the letters, which were evidently exchanged\nwith some frequency between the young mother and the grandmother, how the\ngirlish vanity was being weeded out of her heart by love for her baby.\nThe white “Paduasoy” figured again in the letters, with almost as much\nvigour as before.  In one, it was being made into a christening cloak for\nthe baby.  It decked it when it went with its parents to spend a day or\ntwo at Arley Hall.  It added to its charms, when it was “the prettiest\nlittle baby that ever was seen.  Dear mother, I wish you could see her!\nWithout any pershality, I do think she will grow up a regular bewty!”  I\nthought of Miss Jenkyns, grey, withered, and wrinkled, and I wondered if\nher mother had known her in the courts of heaven: and then I knew that\nshe had, and that they stood there in angelic guise.\n\nThere was a great gap before any of the rector’s letters appeared.  And\nthen his wife had changed her mode of her endorsement.  It was no longer\nfrom, “My dearest John;” it was from “My Honoured Husband.”  The letters\nwere written on occasion of the publication of the same sermon which was\nrepresented in the picture.  The preaching before “My Lord Judge,” and\nthe “publishing by request,” was evidently the culminating point—the\nevent of his life.  It had been necessary for him to go up to London to\nsuperintend it through the press.  Many friends had to be called upon and\nconsulted before he could decide on any printer fit for so onerous a\ntask; and at length it was arranged that J. and J. Rivingtons were to\nhave the honourable responsibility.  The worthy rector seemed to be\nstrung up by the occasion to a high literary pitch, for he could hardly\nwrite a letter to his wife without cropping out into Latin.  I remember\nthe end of one of his letters ran thus: “I shall ever hold the virtuous\nqualities of my Molly in remembrance, _dum memor ipse mei_, _dum spiritus\nregit artus_,” which, considering that the English of his correspondent\nwas sometimes at fault in grammar, and often in spelling, might be taken\nas a proof of how much he “idealised his Molly;” and, as Miss Jenkyns\nused to say, “People talk a great deal about idealising now-a-days,\nwhatever that may mean.”  But this was nothing to a fit of writing\nclassical poetry which soon seized him, in which his Molly figured away\nas “Maria.”  The letter containing the _carmen_ was endorsed by her,\n“Hebrew verses sent me by my honoured husband.  I thowt to have had a\nletter about killing the pig, but must wait.  Mem., to send the poetry to\nSir Peter Arley, as my husband desires.”  And in a post-scriptum note in\nhis handwriting it was stated that the Ode had appeared in the\n_Gentleman’s Magazine_, December 1782.\n\nHer letters back to her husband (treasured as fondly by him as if they\nhad been _M. T. Ciceronis Epistolæ_) were more satisfactory to an absent\nhusband and father than his could ever have been to her.  She told him\nhow Deborah sewed her seam very neatly every day, and read to her in the\nbooks he had set her; how she was a very “forrard,” good child, but would\nask questions her mother could not answer, but how she did not let\nherself down by saying she did not know, but took to stirring the fire,\nor sending the “forrard” child on an errand.  Matty was now the mother’s\ndarling, and promised (like her sister at her age), to be a great beauty.\nI was reading this aloud to Miss Matty, who smiled and sighed a little at\nthe hope, so fondly expressed, that “little Matty might not be vain, even\nif she were a bewty.”\n\n“I had very pretty hair, my dear,” said Miss Matilda; “and not a bad\nmouth.”  And I saw her soon afterwards adjust her cap and draw herself\nup.\n\nBut to return to Mrs Jenkyns’s letters.  She told her husband about the\npoor in the parish; what homely domestic medicines she had administered;\nwhat kitchen physic she had sent.  She had evidently held his displeasure\nas a rod in pickle over the heads of all the ne’er-do-wells.  She asked\nfor his directions about the cows and pigs; and did not always obtain\nthem, as I have shown before.\n\nThe kind old grandmother was dead when a little boy was born, soon after\nthe publication of the sermon; but there was another letter of\nexhortation from the grandfather, more stringent and admonitory than\never, now that there was a boy to be guarded from the snares of the\nworld.  He described all the various sins into which men might fall,\nuntil I wondered how any man ever came to a natural death.  The gallows\nseemed as if it must have been the termination of the lives of most of\nthe grandfather’s friends and acquaintance; and I was not surprised at\nthe way in which he spoke of this life being “a vale of tears.”\n\nIt seemed curious that I should never have heard of this brother before;\nbut I concluded that he had died young, or else surely his name would\nhave been alluded to by his sisters.\n\nBy-and-by we came to packets of Miss Jenkyns’s letters.  These Miss Matty\ndid regret to burn.  She said all the others had been only interesting to\nthose who loved the writers, and that it seemed as if it would have hurt\nher to allow them to fall into the hands of strangers, who had not known\nher dear mother, and how good she was, although she did not always spell,\nquite in the modern fashion; but Deborah’s letters were so very superior!\nAny one might profit by reading them.  It was a long time since she had\nread Mrs Chapone, but she knew she used to think that Deborah could have\nsaid the same things quite as well; and as for Mrs Carter! people thought\na deal of her letters, just because she had written “Epictetus,” but she\nwas quite sure Deborah would never have made use of such a common\nexpression as “I canna be fashed!”\n\nMiss Matty did grudge burning these letters, it was evident.  She would\nnot let them be carelessly passed over with any quiet reading, and\nskipping, to myself.  She took them from me, and even lighted the second\ncandle in order to read them aloud with a proper emphasis, and without\nstumbling over the big words.  Oh dear! how I wanted facts instead of\nreflections, before those letters were concluded!  They lasted us two\nnights; and I won’t deny that I made use of the time to think of many\nother things, and yet I was always at my post at the end of each\nsentence.\n\nThe rector’s letters, and those of his wife and mother-in-law, had all\nbeen tolerably short and pithy, written in a straight hand, with the\nlines very close together.  Sometimes the whole letter was contained on a\nmere scrap of paper.  The paper was very yellow, and the ink very brown;\nsome of the sheets were (as Miss Matty made me observe) the old original\npost, with the stamp in the corner representing a post-boy riding for\nlife and twanging his horn.  The letters of Mrs Jenkyns and her mother\nwere fastened with a great round red wafer; for it was before Miss\nEdgeworth’s “patronage” had banished wafers from polite society.  It was\nevident, from the tenor of what was said, that franks were in great\nrequest, and were even used as a means of paying debts by needy members\nof Parliament.  The rector sealed his epistles with an immense coat of\narms, and showed by the care with which he had performed this ceremony\nthat he expected they should be cut open, not broken by any thoughtless\nor impatient hand.  Now, Miss Jenkyns’s letters were of a later date in\nform and writing.  She wrote on the square sheet which we have learned to\ncall old-fashioned.  Her hand was admirably calculated, together with her\nuse of many-syllabled words, to fill up a sheet, and then came the pride\nand delight of crossing.  Poor Miss Matty got sadly puzzled with this,\nfor the words gathered size like snowballs, and towards the end of her\nletter Miss Jenkyns used to become quite sesquipedalian.  In one to her\nfather, slightly theological and controversial in its tone, she had\nspoken of Herod, Tetrarch of Idumea.  Miss Matty read it “Herod Petrarch\nof Etruria,” and was just as well pleased as if she had been right.\n\nI can’t quite remember the date, but I think it was in 1805 that Miss\nJenkyns wrote the longest series of letters—on occasion of her absence on\na visit to some friends near Newcastle-upon-Tyne.  These friends were\nintimate with the commandant of the garrison there, and heard from him of\nall the preparations that were being made to repel the invasion of\nBuonaparte, which some people imagined might take place at the mouth of\nthe Tyne.  Miss Jenkyns was evidently very much alarmed; and the first\npart of her letters was often written in pretty intelligible English,\nconveying particulars of the preparations which were made in the family\nwith whom she was residing against the dreaded event; the bundles of\nclothes that were packed up ready for a flight to Alston Moor (a wild\nhilly piece of ground between Northumberland and Cumberland); the signal\nthat was to be given for this flight, and for the simultaneous turning\nout of the volunteers under arms—which said signal was to consist (if I\nremember rightly) in ringing the church bells in a particular and ominous\nmanner.  One day, when Miss Jenkyns and her hosts were at a dinner-party\nin Newcastle, this warning summons was actually given (not a very wise\nproceeding, if there be any truth in the moral attached to the fable of\nthe Boy and the Wolf; but so it was), and Miss Jenkyns, hardly recovered\nfrom her fright, wrote the next day to describe the sound, the breathless\nshock, the hurry and alarm; and then, taking breath, she added, “How\ntrivial, my dear father, do all our apprehensions of the last evening\nappear, at the present moment, to calm and enquiring minds!”  And here\nMiss Matty broke in with—\n\n“But, indeed, my dear, they were not at all trivial or trifling at the\ntime.  I know I used to wake up in the night many a time and think I\nheard the tramp of the French entering Cranford.  Many people talked of\nhiding themselves in the salt mines—and meat would have kept capitally\ndown there, only perhaps we should have been thirsty.  And my father\npreached a whole set of sermons on the occasion; one set in the mornings,\nall about David and Goliath, to spirit up the people to fighting with\nspades or bricks, if need were; and the other set in the afternoons,\nproving that Napoleon (that was another name for Bony, as we used to call\nhim) was all the same as an Apollyon and Abaddon.  I remember my father\nrather thought he should be asked to print this last set; but the parish\nhad, perhaps, had enough of them with hearing.”\n\nPeter Marmaduke Arley Jenkyns (“poor Peter!” as Miss Matty began to call\nhim) was at school at Shrewsbury by this time.  The rector took up his\npen, and rubbed up his Latin once more, to correspond with his boy.  It\nwas very clear that the lad’s were what are called show letters.  They\nwere of a highly mental description, giving an account of his studies,\nand his intellectual hopes of various kinds, with an occasional quotation\nfrom the classics; but, now and then, the animal nature broke out in such\na little sentence as this, evidently written in a trembling hurry, after\nthe letter had been inspected: “Mother dear, do send me a cake, and put\nplenty of citron in.”  The “mother dear” probably answered her boy in the\nform of cakes and “goody,” for there were none of her letters among this\nset; but a whole collection of the rector’s, to whom the Latin in his\nboy’s letters was like a trumpet to the old war-horse.  I do not know\nmuch about Latin, certainly, and it is, perhaps, an ornamental language,\nbut not very useful, I think—at least to judge from the bits I remember\nout of the rector’s letters.  One was, “You have not got that town in\nyour map of Ireland; but _Bonus Bernardus non videt omnia_, as the\nProverbia say.”  Presently it became very evident that “poor Peter” got\nhimself into many scrapes.  There were letters of stilted penitence to\nhis father, for some wrong-doing; and among them all was a badly-written,\nbadly-sealed, badly-directed, blotted note:—“My dear, dear, dear, dearest\nmother, I will be a better boy; I will, indeed; but don’t, please, be ill\nfor me; I am not worth it; but I will be good, darling mother.”\n\nMiss Matty could not speak for crying, after she had read this note.  She\ngave it to me in silence, and then got up and took it to her sacred\nrecesses in her own room, for fear, by any chance, it might get burnt.\n“Poor Peter!” she said; “he was always in scrapes; he was too easy.  They\nled him wrong, and then left him in the lurch.  But he was too fond of\nmischief.  He could never resist a joke.  Poor Peter!”\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI—POOR PETER\n\n\nPOOR Peter’s career lay before him rather pleasantly mapped out by kind\nfriends, but _Bonus Bernardus non videt omnia_, in this map too.  He was\nto win honours at the Shrewsbury School, and carry them thick to\nCambridge, and after that, a living awaited him, the gift of his\ngodfather, Sir Peter Arley.  Poor Peter! his lot in life was very\ndifferent to what his friends had hoped and planned.  Miss Matty told me\nall about it, and I think it was a relief when she had done so.\n\nHe was the darling of his mother, who seemed to dote on all her children,\nthough she was, perhaps, a little afraid of Deborah’s superior\nacquirements.  Deborah was the favourite of her father, and when Peter\ndisappointed him, she became his pride.  The sole honour Peter brought\naway from Shrewsbury was the reputation of being the best good fellow\nthat ever was, and of being the captain of the school in the art of\npractical joking.  His father was disappointed, but set about remedying\nthe matter in a manly way.  He could not afford to send Peter to read\nwith any tutor, but he could read with him himself; and Miss Matty told\nme much of the awful preparations in the way of dictionaries and lexicons\nthat were made in her father’s study the morning Peter began.\n\n“My poor mother!” said she.  “I remember how she used to stand in the\nhall, just near enough the study-door, to catch the tone of my father’s\nvoice.  I could tell in a moment if all was going right, by her face.\nAnd it did go right for a long time.”\n\n“What went wrong at last?” said I.  “That tiresome Latin, I dare say.”\n\n“No! it was not the Latin.  Peter was in high favour with my father, for\nhe worked up well for him.  But he seemed to think that the Cranford\npeople might be joked about, and made fun of, and they did not like it;\nnobody does.  He was always hoaxing them; ‘hoaxing’ is not a pretty word,\nmy dear, and I hope you won’t tell your father I used it, for I should\nnot like him to think that I was not choice in my language, after living\nwith such a woman as Deborah.  And be sure you never use it yourself.  I\ndon’t know how it slipped out of my mouth, except it was that I was\nthinking of poor Peter and it was always his expression.  But he was a\nvery gentlemanly boy in many things.  He was like dear Captain Brown in\nalways being ready to help any old person or a child.  Still, he did like\njoking and making fun; and he seemed to think the old ladies in Cranford\nwould believe anything.  There were many old ladies living here then; we\nare principally ladies now, I know, but we are not so old as the ladies\nused to be when I was a girl.  I could laugh to think of some of Peter’s\njokes.  No, my dear, I won’t tell you of them, because they might not\nshock you as they ought to do, and they were very shocking.  He even took\nin my father once, by dressing himself up as a lady that was passing\nthrough the town and wished to see the Rector of Cranford, ‘who had\npublished that admirable Assize Sermon.’  Peter said he was awfully\nfrightened himself when he saw how my father took it all in, and even\noffered to copy out all his Napoleon Buonaparte sermons for her—him, I\nmean—no, her, for Peter was a lady then.  He told me he was more\nterrified than he ever was before, all the time my father was speaking.\nHe did not think my father would have believed him; and yet if he had\nnot, it would have been a sad thing for Peter.  As it was, he was none so\nglad of it, for my father kept him hard at work copying out all those\ntwelve Buonaparte sermons for the lady—that was for Peter himself, you\nknow.  He was the lady.  And once when he wanted to go fishing, Peter\nsaid, ‘Confound the woman!’—very bad language, my dear, but Peter was not\nalways so guarded as he should have been; my father was so angry with\nhim, it nearly frightened me out of my wits: and yet I could hardly keep\nfrom laughing at the little curtseys Peter kept making, quite slyly,\nwhenever my father spoke of the lady’s excellent taste and sound\ndiscrimination.”\n\n“Did Miss Jenkyns know of these tricks?” said I.\n\n“Oh, no!  Deborah would have been too much shocked.  No, no one knew but\nme.  I wish I had always known of Peter’s plans; but sometimes he did not\ntell me.  He used to say the old ladies in the town wanted something to\ntalk about; but I don’t think they did.  They had the _St James’s\nChronicle_ three times a week, just as we have now, and we have plenty to\nsay; and I remember the clacking noise there always was when some of the\nladies got together.  But, probably, schoolboys talk more than ladies.\nAt last there was a terrible, sad thing happened.”  Miss Matty got up,\nwent to the door, and opened it; no one was there.  She rang the bell for\nMartha, and when Martha came, her mistress told her to go for eggs to a\nfarm at the other end of the town.\n\n“I will lock the door after you, Martha.  You are not afraid to go, are\nyou?”\n\n“No, ma’am, not at all; Jem Hearn will be only too proud to go with me.”\n\nMiss Matty drew herself up, and as soon as we were alone, she wished that\nMartha had more maidenly reserve.\n\n“We’ll put out the candle, my dear.  We can talk just as well by\nfirelight, you know.  There!  Well, you see, Deborah had gone from home\nfor a fortnight or so; it was a very still, quiet day, I remember,\noverhead; and the lilacs were all in flower, so I suppose it was spring.\nMy father had gone out to see some sick people in the parish; I recollect\nseeing him leave the house with his wig and shovel-hat and cane.  What\npossessed our poor Peter I don’t know; he had the sweetest temper, and\nyet he always seemed to like to plague Deborah.  She never laughed at his\njokes, and thought him ungenteel, and not careful enough about improving\nhis mind; and that vexed him.\n\n“Well! he went to her room, it seems, and dressed himself in her old\ngown, and shawl, and bonnet; just the things she used to wear in\nCranford, and was known by everywhere; and he made the pillow into a\nlittle—you are sure you locked the door, my dear, for I should not like\nanyone to hear—into—into a little baby, with white long clothes.  It was\nonly, as he told me afterwards, to make something to talk about in the\ntown; he never thought of it as affecting Deborah.  And he went and\nwalked up and down in the Filbert walk—just half-hidden by the rails, and\nhalf-seen; and he cuddled his pillow, just like a baby, and talked to it\nall the nonsense people do.  Oh dear! and my father came stepping stately\nup the street, as he always did; and what should he see but a little\nblack crowd of people—I daresay as many as twenty—all peeping through his\ngarden rails.  So he thought, at first, they were only looking at a new\nrhododendron that was in full bloom, and that he was very proud of; and\nhe walked slower, that they might have more time to admire.  And he\nwondered if he could make out a sermon from the occasion, and thought,\nperhaps, there was some relation between the rhododendrons and the lilies\nof the field.  My poor father!  When he came nearer, he began to wonder\nthat they did not see him; but their heads were all so close together,\npeeping and peeping!  My father was amongst them, meaning, he said, to\nask them to walk into the garden with him, and admire the beautiful\nvegetable production, when—oh, my dear, I tremble to think of it—he\nlooked through the rails himself, and saw—I don’t know what he thought he\nsaw, but old Clare told me his face went quite grey-white with anger, and\nhis eyes blazed out under his frowning black brows; and he spoke out—oh,\nso terribly!—and bade them all stop where they were—not one of them to\ngo, not one of them to stir a step; and, swift as light, he was in at the\ngarden door, and down the Filbert walk, and seized hold of poor Peter,\nand tore his clothes off his back—bonnet, shawl, gown, and all—and threw\nthe pillow among the people over the railings: and then he was very, very\nangry indeed, and before all the people he lifted up his cane and flogged\nPeter!\n\n“My dear, that boy’s trick, on that sunny day, when all seemed going\nstraight and well, broke my mother’s heart, and changed my father for\nlife.  It did, indeed.  Old Clare said, Peter looked as white as my\nfather; and stood as still as a statue to be flogged; and my father\nstruck hard!  When my father stopped to take breath, Peter said, ‘Have\nyou done enough, sir?’ quite hoarsely, and still standing quite quiet.  I\ndon’t know what my father said—or if he said anything.  But old Clare\nsaid, Peter turned to where the people outside the railing were, and made\nthem a low bow, as grand and as grave as any gentleman; and then walked\nslowly into the house.  I was in the store-room helping my mother to make\ncowslip wine.  I cannot abide the wine now, nor the scent of the flowers;\nthey turn me sick and faint, as they did that day, when Peter came in,\nlooking as haughty as any man—indeed, looking like a man, not like a boy.\n‘Mother!’ he said, ‘I am come to say, God bless you for ever.’  I saw his\nlips quiver as he spoke; and I think he durst not say anything more\nloving, for the purpose that was in his heart.  She looked at him rather\nfrightened, and wondering, and asked him what was to do.  He did not\nsmile or speak, but put his arms round her and kissed her as if he did\nnot know how to leave off; and before she could speak again, he was gone.\nWe talked it over, and could not understand it, and she bade me go and\nseek my father, and ask what it was all about.  I found him walking up\nand down, looking very highly displeased.\n\n“‘Tell your mother I have flogged Peter, and that he richly deserved it.’\n\n“I durst not ask any more questions.  When I told my mother, she sat\ndown, quite faint, for a minute.  I remember, a few days after, I saw the\npoor, withered cowslip flowers thrown out to the leaf heap, to decay and\ndie there.  There was no making of cowslip wine that year at the\nrectory—nor, indeed, ever after.\n\n“Presently my mother went to my father.  I know I thought of Queen Esther\nand King Ahasuerus; for my mother was very pretty and delicate-looking,\nand my father looked as terrible as King Ahasuerus.  Some time after they\ncame out together; and then my mother told me what had happened, and that\nshe was going up to Peter’s room at my father’s desire—though she was not\nto tell Peter this—to talk the matter over with him.  But no Peter was\nthere.  We looked over the house; no Peter was there!  Even my father,\nwho had not liked to join in the search at first, helped us before long.\nThe rectory was a very old house—steps up into a room, steps down into a\nroom, all through.  At first, my mother went calling low and soft, as if\nto reassure the poor boy, ‘Peter!  Peter, dear! it’s only me;’ but,\nby-and-by, as the servants came back from the errands my father had sent\nthem, in different directions, to find where Peter was—as we found he was\nnot in the garden, nor the hayloft, nor anywhere about—my mother’s cry\ngrew louder and wilder, Peter!  Peter, my darling! where are you?’ for\nthen she felt and understood that that long kiss meant some sad kind of\n‘good-bye.’  The afternoon went on—my mother never resting, but seeking\nagain and again in every possible place that had been looked into twenty\ntimes before, nay, that she had looked into over and over again herself.\nMy father sat with his head in his hands, not speaking except when his\nmessengers came in, bringing no tidings; then he lifted up his face, so\nstrong and sad, and told them to go again in some new direction.  My\nmother kept passing from room to room, in and out of the house, moving\nnoiselessly, but never ceasing.  Neither she nor my father durst leave\nthe house, which was the meeting-place for all the messengers.  At last\n(and it was nearly dark), my father rose up.  He took hold of my mother’s\narm as she came with wild, sad pace through one door, and quickly towards\nanother.  She started at the touch of his hand, for she had forgotten all\nin the world but Peter.\n\n“‘Molly!’ said he, ‘I did not think all this would happen.’  He looked\ninto her face for comfort—her poor face all wild and white; for neither\nshe nor my father had dared to acknowledge—much less act upon—the terror\nthat was in their hearts, lest Peter should have made away with himself.\nMy father saw no conscious look in his wife’s hot, dreary eyes, and he\nmissed the sympathy that she had always been ready to give him—strong man\nas he was, and at the dumb despair in her face his tears began to flow.\nBut when she saw this, a gentle sorrow came over her countenance, and she\nsaid, ‘Dearest John! don’t cry; come with me, and we’ll find him,’ almost\nas cheerfully as if she knew where he was.  And she took my father’s\ngreat hand in her little soft one, and led him along, the tears dropping\nas he walked on that same unceasing, weary walk, from room to room,\nthrough house and garden.\n\n“Oh, how I wished for Deborah!  I had no time for crying, for now all\nseemed to depend on me.  I wrote for Deborah to come home.  I sent a\nmessage privately to that same Mr Holbrook’s house—poor Mr Holbrook;—you\nknow who I mean.  I don’t mean I sent a message to him, but I sent one\nthat I could trust to know if Peter was at his house.  For at one time Mr\nHolbrook was an occasional visitor at the rectory—you know he was Miss\nPole’s cousin—and he had been very kind to Peter, and taught him how to\nfish—he was very kind to everybody, and I thought Peter might have gone\noff there.  But Mr Holbrook was from home, and Peter had never been seen.\nIt was night now; but the doors were all wide open, and my father and\nmother walked on and on; it was more than an hour since he had joined\nher, and I don’t believe they had ever spoken all that time.  I was\ngetting the parlour fire lighted, and one of the servants was preparing\ntea, for I wanted them to have something to eat and drink and warm them,\nwhen old Clare asked to speak to me.\n\n“‘I have borrowed the nets from the weir, Miss Matty.  Shall we drag the\nponds to-night, or wait for the morning?’\n\n“I remember staring in his face to gather his meaning; and when I did, I\nlaughed out loud.  The horror of that new thought—our bright, darling\nPeter, cold, and stark, and dead!  I remember the ring of my own laugh\nnow.\n\n“The next day Deborah was at home before I was myself again.  She would\nnot have been so weak as to give way as I had done; but my screams (my\nhorrible laughter had ended in crying) had roused my sweet dear mother,\nwhose poor wandering wits were called back and collected as soon as a\nchild needed her care.  She and Deborah sat by my bedside; I knew by the\nlooks of each that there had been no news of Peter—no awful, ghastly\nnews, which was what I most had dreaded in my dull state between sleeping\nand waking.\n\n“The same result of all the searching had brought something of the same\nrelief to my mother, to whom, I am sure, the thought that Peter might\neven then be hanging dead in some of the familiar home places had caused\nthat never-ending walk of yesterday.  Her soft eyes never were the same\nagain after that; they had always a restless, craving look, as if seeking\nfor what they could not find.  Oh! it was an awful time; coming down like\na thunder-bolt on the still sunny day when the lilacs were all in bloom.”\n\n“Where was Mr Peter?” said I.\n\n“He had made his way to Liverpool; and there was war then; and some of\nthe king’s ships lay off the mouth of the Mersey; and they were only too\nglad to have a fine likely boy such as him (five foot nine he was), come\nto offer himself.  The captain wrote to my father, and Peter wrote to my\nmother.  Stay! those letters will be somewhere here.”\n\nWe lighted the candle, and found the captain’s letter and Peter’s too.\nAnd we also found a little simple begging letter from Mrs Jenkyns to\nPeter, addressed to him at the house of an old schoolfellow whither she\nfancied he might have gone.  They had returned it unopened; and unopened\nit had remained ever since, having been inadvertently put by among the\nother letters of that time.  This is it:—\n\n    “MY DEAREST PETER,—You did not think we should be so sorry as we are,\n    I know, or you would never have gone away.  You are too good.  Your\n    father sits and sighs till my heart aches to hear him.  He cannot\n    hold up his head for grief; and yet he only did what he thought was\n    right.  Perhaps he has been too severe, and perhaps I have not been\n    kind enough; but God knows how we love you, my dear only boy.  Don\n    looks so sorry you are gone.  Come back, and make us happy, who love\n    you so much.  I know you will come back.”\n\nBut Peter did not come back.  That spring day was the last time he ever\nsaw his mother’s face.  The writer of the letter—the last—the only person\nwho had ever seen what was written in it, was dead long ago; and I, a\nstranger, not born at the time when this occurrence took place, was the\none to open it.\n\nThe captain’s letter summoned the father and mother to Liverpool\ninstantly, if they wished to see their boy; and, by some of the wild\nchances of life, the captain’s letter had been detained somewhere,\nsomehow.\n\nMiss Matty went on, “And it was racetime, and all the post-horses at\nCranford were gone to the races; but my father and mother set off in our\nown gig—and oh! my dear, they were too late—the ship was gone!  And now\nread Peter’s letter to my mother!”\n\nIt was full of love, and sorrow, and pride in his new profession, and a\nsore sense of his disgrace in the eyes of the people at Cranford; but\nending with a passionate entreaty that she would come and see him before\nhe left the Mersey: “Mother; we may go into battle.  I hope we shall, and\nlick those French: but I must see you again before that time.”\n\n“And she was too late,” said Miss Matty; “too late!”\n\nWe sat in silence, pondering on the full meaning of those sad, sad words.\nAt length I asked Miss Matty to tell me how her mother bore it.\n\n“Oh!” she said, “she was patience itself.  She had never been strong, and\nthis weakened her terribly.  My father used to sit looking at her: far\nmore sad than she was.  He seemed as if he could look at nothing else\nwhen she was by; and he was so humble—so very gentle now.  He would,\nperhaps, speak in his old way—laying down the law, as it were—and then,\nin a minute or two, he would come round and put his hand on our\nshoulders, and ask us in a low voice, if he had said anything to hurt us.\nI did not wonder at his speaking so to Deborah, for she was so clever;\nbut I could not bear to hear him talking so to me.\n\n“But, you see, he saw what we did not—that it was killing my mother.\nYes! killing her (put out the candle, my dear; I can talk better in the\ndark), for she was but a frail woman, and ill-fitted to stand the fright\nand shock she had gone through; and she would smile at him and comfort\nhim, not in words, but in her looks and tones, which were always cheerful\nwhen he was there.  And she would speak of how she thought Peter stood a\ngood chance of being admiral very soon—he was so brave and clever; and\nhow she thought of seeing him in his navy uniform, and what sort of hats\nadmirals wore; and how much more fit he was to be a sailor than a\nclergyman; and all in that way, just to make my father think she was\nquite glad of what came of that unlucky morning’s work, and the flogging\nwhich was always in his mind, as we all knew.  But oh, my dear! the\nbitter, bitter crying she had when she was alone; and at last, as she\ngrew weaker, she could not keep her tears in when Deborah or me was by,\nand would give us message after message for Peter (his ship had gone to\nthe Mediterranean, or somewhere down there, and then he was ordered off\nto India, and there was no overland route then); but she still said that\nno one knew where their death lay in wait, and that we were not to think\nhers was near.  We did not think it, but we knew it, as we saw her fading\naway.\n\n“Well, my dear, it’s very foolish of me, I know, when in all likelihood I\nam so near seeing her again.\n\n“And only think, love! the very day after her death—for she did not live\nquite a twelvemonth after Peter went away—the very day after—came a\nparcel for her from India—from her poor boy.  It was a large, soft, white\nIndian shawl, with just a little narrow border all round; just what my\nmother would have liked.\n\n“We thought it might rouse my father, for he had sat with her hand in his\nall night long; so Deborah took it in to him, and Peter’s letter to her,\nand all.  At first, he took no notice; and we tried to make a kind of\nlight careless talk about the shawl, opening it out and admiring it.\nThen, suddenly, he got up, and spoke: ‘She shall be buried in it,’ he\nsaid; ‘Peter shall have that comfort; and she would have liked it.’\n\n“Well, perhaps it was not reasonable, but what could we do or say?  One\ngives people in grief their own way.  He took it up and felt it: ‘It is\njust such a shawl as she wished for when she was married, and her mother\ndid not give it her.  I did not know of it till after, or she should have\nhad it—she should; but she shall have it now.’\n\n“My mother looked so lovely in her death!  She was always pretty, and now\nshe looked fair, and waxen, and young—younger than Deborah, as she stood\ntrembling and shivering by her.  We decked her in the long soft folds;\nshe lay smiling, as if pleased; and people came—all Cranford came—to beg\nto see her, for they had loved her dearly, as well they might; and the\ncountrywomen brought posies; old Clare’s wife brought some white violets\nand begged they might lie on her breast.\n\n“Deborah said to me, the day of my mother’s funeral, that if she had a\nhundred offers she never would marry and leave my father.  It was not\nvery likely she would have so many—I don’t know that she had one; but it\nwas not less to her credit to say so.  She was such a daughter to my\nfather as I think there never was before or since.  His eyes failed him,\nand she read book after book, and wrote, and copied, and was always at\nhis service in any parish business.  She could do many more things than\nmy poor mother could; she even once wrote a letter to the bishop for my\nfather.  But he missed my mother sorely; the whole parish noticed it.\nNot that he was less active; I think he was more so, and more patient in\nhelping every one.  I did all I could to set Deborah at liberty to be\nwith him; for I knew I was good for little, and that my best work in the\nworld was to do odd jobs quietly, and set others at liberty.  But my\nfather was a changed man.”\n\n“Did Mr Peter ever come home?”\n\n“Yes, once.  He came home a lieutenant; he did not get to be admiral.\nAnd he and my father were such friends!  My father took him into every\nhouse in the parish, he was so proud of him.  He never walked out without\nPeter’s arm to lean upon.  Deborah used to smile (I don’t think we ever\nlaughed again after my mother’s death), and say she was quite put in a\ncorner.  Not but what my father always wanted her when there was\nletter-writing or reading to be done, or anything to be settled.”\n\n“And then?” said I, after a pause.\n\n“Then Peter went to sea again; and, by-and-by, my father died, blessing\nus both, and thanking Deborah for all she had been to him; and, of\ncourse, our circumstances were changed; and, instead of living at the\nrectory, and keeping three maids and a man, we had to come to this small\nhouse, and be content with a servant-of-all-work; but, as Deborah used to\nsay, we have always lived genteelly, even if circumstances have compelled\nus to simplicity.  Poor Deborah!”\n\n“And Mr Peter?” asked I.\n\n“Oh, there was some great war in India—I forget what they call it—and we\nhave never heard of Peter since then.  I believe he is dead myself; and\nit sometimes fidgets me that we have never put on mourning for him.  And\nthen again, when I sit by myself, and all the house is still, I think I\nhear his step coming up the street, and my heart begins to flutter and\nbeat; but the sound always goes past—and Peter never comes.\n\n“That’s Martha back?  No!  _I’ll_ go, my dear; I can always find my way\nin the dark, you know.  And a blow of fresh air at the door will do my\nhead good, and it’s rather got a trick of aching.”\n\nSo she pattered off.  I had lighted the candle, to give the room a\ncheerful appearance against her return.\n\n“Was it Martha?” asked I.\n\n“Yes.  And I am rather uncomfortable, for I heard such a strange noise,\njust as I was opening the door.”\n\n“Where?’ I asked, for her eyes were round with affright.\n\n“In the street—just outside—it sounded like”—\n\n“Talking?” I put in, as she hesitated a little.\n\n“No! kissing”—\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII—VISITING\n\n\nONE morning, as Miss Matty and I sat at our work—it was before twelve\no’clock, and Miss Matty had not changed the cap with yellow ribbons that\nhad been Miss Jenkyns’s best, and which Miss Matty was now wearing out in\nprivate, putting on the one made in imitation of Mrs Jamieson’s at all\ntimes when she expected to be seen—Martha came up, and asked if Miss\nBetty Barker might speak to her mistress.  Miss Matty assented, and\nquickly disappeared to change the yellow ribbons, while Miss Barker came\nupstairs; but, as she had forgotten her spectacles, and was rather\nflurried by the unusual time of the visit, I was not surprised to see her\nreturn with one cap on the top of the other.  She was quite unconscious\nof it herself, and looked at us, with bland satisfaction.  Nor do I think\nMiss Barker perceived it; for, putting aside the little circumstance that\nshe was not so young as she had been, she was very much absorbed in her\nerrand, which she delivered herself of with an oppressive modesty that\nfound vent in endless apologies.\n\nMiss Betty Barker was the daughter of the old clerk at Cranford who had\nofficiated in Mr Jenkyns’s time.  She and her sister had had pretty good\nsituations as ladies’ maids, and had saved money enough to set up a\nmilliner’s shop, which had been patronised by the ladies in the\nneighbourhood.  Lady Arley, for instance, would occasionally give Miss\nBarkers the pattern of an old cap of hers, which they immediately copied\nand circulated among the _élite_ of Cranford.  I say the _élite_, for\nMiss Barkers had caught the trick of the place, and piqued themselves\nupon their “aristocratic connection.”  They would not sell their caps and\nribbons to anyone without a pedigree.  Many a farmer’s wife or daughter\nturned away huffed from Miss Barkers’ select millinery, and went rather\nto the universal shop, where the profits of brown soap and moist sugar\nenabled the proprietor to go straight to (Paris, he said, until he found\nhis customers too patriotic and John Bullish to wear what the Mounseers\nwore) London, where, as he often told his customers, Queen Adelaide had\nappeared, only the very week before, in a cap exactly like the one he\nshowed them, trimmed with yellow and blue ribbons, and had been\ncomplimented by King William on the becoming nature of her head-dress.\n\nMiss Barkers, who confined themselves to truth, and did not approve of\nmiscellaneous customers, throve notwithstanding.  They were self-denying,\ngood people.  Many a time have I seen the eldest of them (she that had\nbeen maid to Mrs Jamieson) carrying out some delicate mess to a poor\nperson.  They only aped their betters in having “nothing to do” with the\nclass immediately below theirs.  And when Miss Barker died, their profits\nand income were found to be such that Miss Betty was justified in\nshutting up shop and retiring from business.  She also (as I think I have\nbefore said) set up her cow; a mark of respectability in Cranford almost\nas decided as setting up a gig is among some people.  She dressed finer\nthan any lady in Cranford; and we did not wonder at it; for it was\nunderstood that she was wearing out all the bonnets and caps and\noutrageous ribbons which had once formed her stock-in-trade.  It was five\nor six years since she had given up shop, so in any other place than\nCranford her dress might have been considered _passée_.\n\nAnd now Miss Betty Barker had called to invite Miss Matty to tea at her\nhouse on the following Tuesday.  She gave me also an impromptu\ninvitation, as I happened to be a visitor—though I could see she had a\nlittle fear lest, since my father had gone to live in Drumble, he might\nhave engaged in that “horrid cotton trade,” and so dragged his family\ndown out of “aristocratic society.”  She prefaced this invitation with so\nmany apologies that she quite excited my curiosity.  “Her presumption”\nwas to be excused.  What had she been doing?  She seemed so over-powered\nby it I could only think that she had been writing to Queen Adelaide to\nask for a receipt for washing lace; but the act which she so\ncharacterised was only an invitation she had carried to her sister’s\nformer mistress, Mrs Jamieson.  “Her former occupation considered, could\nMiss Matty excuse the liberty?”  Ah! thought I, she has found out that\ndouble cap, and is going to rectify Miss Matty’s head-dress.  No! it was\nsimply to extend her invitation to Miss Matty and to me.  Miss Matty\nbowed acceptance; and I wondered that, in the graceful action, she did\nnot feel the unusual weight and extraordinary height of her head-dress.\nBut I do not think she did, for she recovered her balance, and went on\ntalking to Miss Betty in a kind, condescending manner, very different\nfrom the fidgety way she would have had if she had suspected how singular\nher appearance was.  “Mrs Jamieson is coming, I think you said?” asked\nMiss Matty.\n\n“Yes.  Mrs Jamieson most kindly and condescendingly said she would be\nhappy to come.  One little stipulation she made, that she should bring\nCarlo.  I told her that if I had a weakness, it was for dogs.”\n\n“And Miss Pole?” questioned Miss Matty, who was thinking of her pool at\nPreference, in which Carlo would not be available as a partner.\n\n“I am going to ask Miss Pole.  Of course, I could not think of asking her\nuntil I had asked you, madam—the rector’s daughter, madam.  Believe me, I\ndo not forget the situation my father held under yours.”\n\n“And Mrs Forrester, of course?”\n\n“And Mrs Forrester.  I thought, in fact, of going to her before I went to\nMiss Pole.  Although her circumstances are changed, madam, she was born\nat Tyrrell, and we can never forget her alliance to the Bigges, of\nBigelow Hall.”\n\nMiss Matty cared much more for the little circumstance of her being a\nvery good card-player.\n\n“Mrs Fitz-Adam—I suppose”—\n\n“No, madam.  I must draw a line somewhere.  Mrs Jamieson would not, I\nthink, like to meet Mrs Fitz-Adam.  I have the greatest respect for Mrs\nFitz-Adam—but I cannot think her fit society for such ladies as Mrs\nJamieson and Miss Matilda Jenkyns.”\n\nMiss Betty Barker bowed low to Miss Matty, and pursed up her mouth.  She\nlooked at me with sidelong dignity, as much as to say, although a retired\nmilliner, she was no democrat, and understood the difference of ranks.\n\n“May I beg you to come as near half-past six to my little dwelling, as\npossible, Miss Matilda?  Mrs Jamieson dines at five, but has kindly\npromised not to delay her visit beyond that time—half-past six.”  And\nwith a swimming curtsey Miss Betty Barker took her leave.\n\nMy prophetic soul foretold a visit that afternoon from Miss Pole, who\nusually came to call on Miss Matilda after any event—or indeed in sight\nof any event—to talk it over with her.\n\n“Miss Betty told me it was to be a choice and select few,” said Miss\nPole, as she and Miss Matty compared notes.\n\n“Yes, so she said.  Not even Mrs Fitz-Adam.”\n\nNow Mrs Fitz-Adam was the widowed sister of the Cranford surgeon, whom I\nhave named before.  Their parents were respectable farmers, content with\ntheir station.  The name of these good people was Hoggins.  Mr Hoggins\nwas the Cranford doctor now; we disliked the name and considered it\ncoarse; but, as Miss Jenkyns said, if he changed it to Piggins it would\nnot be much better.  We had hoped to discover a relationship between him\nand that Marchioness of Exeter whose name was Molly Hoggins; but the man,\ncareless of his own interests, utterly ignored and denied any such\nrelationship, although, as dear Miss Jenkyns had said, he had a sister\ncalled Mary, and the same Christian names were very apt to run in\nfamilies.\n\nSoon after Miss Mary Hoggins married Mr Fitz-Adam, she disappeared from\nthe neighbourhood for many years.  She did not move in a sphere in\nCranford society sufficiently high to make any of us care to know what Mr\nFitz-Adam was.  He died and was gathered to his fathers without our ever\nhaving thought about him at all.  And then Mrs Fitz-Adam reappeared in\nCranford (“as bold as a lion,” Miss Pole said), a well-to-do widow,\ndressed in rustling black silk, so soon after her husband’s death that\npoor Miss Jenkyns was justified in the remark she made, that “bombazine\nwould have shown a deeper sense of her loss.”\n\nI remember the convocation of ladies who assembled to decide whether or\nnot Mrs Fitz-Adam should be called upon by the old blue-blooded\ninhabitants of Cranford.  She had taken a large rambling house, which had\nbeen usually considered to confer a patent of gentility upon its tenant,\nbecause, once upon a time, seventy or eighty years before, the spinster\ndaughter of an earl had resided in it.  I am not sure if the inhabiting\nthis house was not also believed to convey some unusual power of\nintellect; for the earl’s daughter, Lady Jane, had a sister, Lady Anne,\nwho had married a general officer in the time of the American war, and\nthis general officer had written one or two comedies, which were still\nacted on the London boards, and which, when we saw them advertised, made\nus all draw up, and feel that Drury Lane was paying a very pretty\ncompliment to Cranford.  Still, it was not at all a settled thing that\nMrs Fitz-Adam was to be visited, when dear Miss Jenkyns died; and, with\nher, something of the clear knowledge of the strict code of gentility\nwent out too.  As Miss Pole observed, “As most of the ladies of good\nfamily in Cranford were elderly spinsters, or widows without children, if\nwe did not relax a little, and become less exclusive, by-and-by we should\nhave no society at all.”\n\nMrs Forrester continued on the same side.\n\n“She had always understood that Fitz meant something aristocratic; there\nwas Fitz-Roy—she thought that some of the King’s children had been called\nFitz-Roy; and there was Fitz-Clarence, now—they were the children of dear\ngood King William the Fourth.  Fitz-Adam!—it was a pretty name, and she\nthought it very probably meant ‘Child of Adam.’  No one, who had not some\ngood blood in their veins, would dare to be called Fitz; there was a deal\nin a name—she had had a cousin who spelt his name with two little\nffs—ffoulkes—and he always looked down upon capital letters and said they\nbelonged to lately-invented families.  She had been afraid he would die a\nbachelor, he was so very choice.  When he met with a Mrs ffarringdon, at\na watering-place, he took to her immediately; and a very pretty genteel\nwoman she was—a widow, with a very good fortune; and ‘my cousin,’ Mr\nffoulkes, married her; and it was all owing to her two little ffs.”\n\nMrs Fitz-Adam did not stand a chance of meeting with a Mr Fitz-anything\nin Cranford, so that could not have been her motive for settling there.\nMiss Matty thought it might have been the hope of being admitted into the\nsociety of the place, which would certainly be a very agreeable rise for\n_ci-devant_ Miss Hoggins; and if this had been her hope it would be cruel\nto disappoint her.\n\nSo everybody called upon Mrs Fitz-Adam—everybody but Mrs Jamieson, who\nused to show how honourable she was by never seeing Mrs Fitz-Adam when\nthey met at the Cranford parties.  There would be only eight or ten\nladies in the room, and Mrs Fitz-Adam was the largest of all, and she\ninvariably used to stand up when Mrs Jamieson came in, and curtsey very\nlow to her whenever she turned in her direction—so low, in fact, that I\nthink Mrs Jamieson must have looked at the wall above her, for she never\nmoved a muscle of her face, no more than if she had not seen her.  Still\nMrs Fitz-Adam persevered.\n\nThe spring evenings were getting bright and long when three or four\nladies in calashes met at Miss Barker’s door.  Do you know what a calash\nis?  It is a covering worn over caps, not unlike the heads fastened on\nold-fashioned gigs; but sometimes it is not quite so large.  This kind of\nhead-gear always made an awful impression on the children in Cranford;\nand now two or three left off their play in the quiet sunny little\nstreet, and gathered in wondering silence round Miss Pole, Miss Matty,\nand myself.  We were silent too, so that we could hear loud, suppressed\nwhispers inside Miss Barker’s house: “Wait, Peggy! wait till I’ve run\nupstairs and washed my hands.  When I cough, open the door; I’ll not be a\nminute.”\n\nAnd, true enough it was not a minute before we heard a noise, between a\nsneeze and a crow; on which the door flew open.  Behind it stood a\nround-eyed maiden, all aghast at the honourable company of calashes, who\nmarched in without a word.  She recovered presence of mind enough to\nusher us into a small room, which had been the shop, but was now\nconverted into a temporary dressing-room.  There we unpinned and shook\nourselves, and arranged our features before the glass into a sweet and\ngracious company-face; and then, bowing backwards with “After you,\nma’am,” we allowed Mrs Forrester to take precedence up the narrow\nstaircase that led to Miss Barker’s drawing-room.  There she sat, as\nstately and composed as though we had never heard that odd-sounding\ncough, from which her throat must have been even then sore and rough.\nKind, gentle, shabbily-dressed Mrs Forrester was immediately conducted to\nthe second place of honour—a seat arranged something like Prince Albert’s\nnear the Queen’s—good, but not so good.  The place of pre-eminence was,\nof course, reserved for the Honourable Mrs Jamieson, who presently came\npanting up the stairs—Carlo rushing round her on her progress, as if he\nmeant to trip her up.\n\nAnd now Miss Betty Barker was a proud and happy woman!  She stirred the\nfire, and shut the door, and sat as near to it as she could, quite on the\nedge of her chair.  When Peggy came in, tottering under the weight of the\ntea-tray, I noticed that Miss Barker was sadly afraid lest Peggy should\nnot keep her distance sufficiently.  She and her mistress were on very\nfamiliar terms in their every-day intercourse, and Peggy wanted now to\nmake several little confidences to her, which Miss Barker was on thorns\nto hear, but which she thought it her duty, as a lady, to repress.  So\nshe turned away from all Peggy’s asides and signs; but she made one or\ntwo very malapropos answers to what was said; and at last, seized with a\nbright idea, she exclaimed, “Poor, sweet Carlo!  I’m forgetting him.\nCome downstairs with me, poor ittie doggie, and it shall have its tea, it\nshall!”\n\nIn a few minutes she returned, bland and benignant as before; but I\nthought she had forgotten to give the “poor ittie doggie” anything to\neat, judging by the avidity with which he swallowed down chance pieces of\ncake.  The tea-tray was abundantly loaded—I was pleased to see it, I was\nso hungry; but I was afraid the ladies present might think it vulgarly\nheaped up.  I know they would have done at their own houses; but somehow\nthe heaps disappeared here.  I saw Mrs Jamieson eating seed-cake, slowly\nand considerately, as she did everything; and I was rather surprised, for\nI knew she had told us, on the occasion of her last party, that she never\nhad it in her house, it reminded her so much of scented soap.  She always\ngave us Savoy biscuits.  However, Mrs Jamieson was kindly indulgent to\nMiss Barker’s want of knowledge of the customs of high life; and, to\nspare her feelings, ate three large pieces of seed-cake, with a placid,\nruminating expression of countenance, not unlike a cow’s.\n\nAfter tea there was some little demur and difficulty.  We were six in\nnumber; four could play at Preference, and for the other two there was\nCribbage.  But all, except myself (I was rather afraid of the Cranford\nladies at cards, for it was the most earnest and serious business they\never engaged in), were anxious to be of the “pool.”  Even Miss Barker,\nwhile declaring she did not know Spadille from Manille, was evidently\nhankering to take a hand.  The dilemma was soon put an end to by a\nsingular kind of noise.  If a baron’s daughter-in-law could ever be\nsupposed to snore, I should have said Mrs Jamieson did so then; for,\novercome by the heat of the room, and inclined to doze by nature, the\ntemptation of that very comfortable arm-chair had been too much for her,\nand Mrs Jamieson was nodding.  Once or twice she opened her eyes with an\neffort, and calmly but unconsciously smiled upon us; but by-and-by, even\nher benevolence was not equal to this exertion, and she was sound asleep.\n\n“It is very gratifying to me,” whispered Miss Barker at the card-table to\nher three opponents, whom, notwithstanding her ignorance of the game, she\nwas “basting” most unmercifully—“very gratifying indeed, to see how\ncompletely Mrs Jamieson feels at home in my poor little dwelling; she\ncould not have paid me a greater compliment.”\n\nMiss Barker provided me with some literature in the shape of three or\nfour handsomely-bound fashion-books ten or twelve years old, observing,\nas she put a little table and a candle for my especial benefit, that she\nknew young people liked to look at pictures.  Carlo lay and snorted, and\nstarted at his mistress’s feet.  He, too, was quite at home.\n\nThe card-table was an animated scene to watch; four ladies’ heads, with\nniddle-noddling caps, all nearly meeting over the middle of the table in\ntheir eagerness to whisper quick enough and loud enough: and every now\nand then came Miss Barker’s “Hush, ladies! if you please, hush!  Mrs\nJamieson is asleep.”\n\nIt was very difficult to steer clear between Mrs Forrester’s deafness and\nMrs Jamieson’s sleepiness.  But Miss Barker managed her arduous task\nwell.  She repeated the whisper to Mrs Forrester, distorting her face\nconsiderably, in order to show, by the motions of her lips, what was\nsaid; and then she smiled kindly all round at us, and murmured to\nherself, “Very gratifying, indeed; I wish my poor sister had been alive\nto see this day.”\n\nPresently the door was thrown wide open; Carlo started to his feet, with\na loud snapping bark, and Mrs Jamieson awoke: or, perhaps, she had not\nbeen asleep—as she said almost directly, the room had been so light she\nhad been glad to keep her eyes shut, but had been listening with great\ninterest to all our amusing and agreeable conversation.  Peggy came in\nonce more, red with importance.  Another tray!  “Oh, gentility!” thought\nI, “can yon endure this last shock?”  For Miss Barker had ordered (nay, I\ndoubt not, prepared, although she did say, “Why, Peggy, what have you\nbrought us?” and looked pleasantly surprised at the unexpected pleasure)\nall sorts of good things for supper—scalloped oysters, potted lobsters,\njelly, a dish called “little Cupids” (which was in great favour with the\nCranford ladies, although too expensive to be given, except on solemn and\nstate occasions—macaroons sopped in brandy, I should have called it, if I\nhad not known its more refined and classical name).  In short, we were\nevidently to be feasted with all that was sweetest and best; and we\nthought it better to submit graciously, even at the cost of our\ngentility—which never ate suppers in general, but which, like most\nnon-supper-eaters, was particularly hungry on all special occasions.\n\nMiss Barker, in her former sphere, had, I daresay, been made acquainted\nwith the beverage they call cherry-brandy.  We none of us had ever seen\nsuch a thing, and rather shrank back when she proffered it us—“just a\nlittle, leetle glass, ladies; after the oysters and lobsters, you know.\nShell-fish are sometimes thought not very wholesome.”  We all shook our\nheads like female mandarins; but, at last, Mrs Jamieson suffered herself\nto be persuaded, and we followed her lead.  It was not exactly\nunpalatable, though so hot and so strong that we thought ourselves bound\nto give evidence that we were not accustomed to such things by coughing\nterribly—almost as strangely as Miss Barker had done, before we were\nadmitted by Peggy.\n\n“It’s very strong,” said Miss Pole, as she put down her empty glass; “I\ndo believe there’s spirit in it.”\n\n“Only a little drop—just necessary to make it keep,” said Miss Barker.\n“You know we put brandy-pepper over our preserves to make them keep.  I\noften feel tipsy myself from eating damson tart.”\n\nI question whether damson tart would have opened Mrs Jamieson’s heart as\nthe cherry-brandy did; but she told us of a coming event, respecting\nwhich she had been quite silent till that moment.\n\n“My sister-in-law, Lady Glenmire, is coming to stay with me.”\n\nThere was a chorus of “Indeed!” and then a pause.  Each one rapidly\nreviewed her wardrobe, as to its fitness to appear in the presence of a\nbaron’s widow; for, of course, a series of small festivals were always\nheld in Cranford on the arrival of a visitor at any of our friends’\nhouses.  We felt very pleasantly excited on the present occasion.\n\nNot long after this the maids and the lanterns were announced.  Mrs\nJamieson had the sedan-chair, which had squeezed itself into Miss\nBarker’s narrow lobby with some difficulty, and most literally “stopped\nthe way.”  It required some skilful manoeuvring on the part of the old\nchairmen (shoemakers by day, but when summoned to carry the sedan dressed\nup in a strange old livery—long great-coats, with small capes, coeval\nwith the sedan, and similar to the dress of the class in Hogarth’s\npictures) to edge, and back, and try at it again, and finally to succeed\nin carrying their burden out of Miss Barker’s front door.  Then we heard\ntheir quick pit-a-pat along the quiet little street as we put on our\ncalashes and pinned up our gowns; Miss Barker hovering about us with\noffers of help, which, if she had not remembered her former occupation,\nand wished us to forget it, would have been much more pressing.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII—“YOUR LADYSHIP”\n\n\nEARLY the next morning—directly after twelve—Miss Pole made her\nappearance at Miss Matty’s.  Some very trifling piece of business was\nalleged as a reason for the call; but there was evidently something\nbehind.  At last out it came.\n\n“By the way, you’ll think I’m strangely ignorant; but, do you really\nknow, I am puzzled how we ought to address Lady Glenmire.  Do you say,\n‘Your Ladyship,’ where you would say ‘you’ to a common person?  I have\nbeen puzzling all morning; and are we to say ‘My Lady,’ instead of\n‘Ma’am?’  Now you knew Lady Arley—will you kindly tell me the most\ncorrect way of speaking to the peerage?”\n\nPoor Miss Matty! she took off her spectacles and she put them on\nagain—but how Lady Arley was addressed, she could not remember.\n\n“It is so long ago,” she said.  “Dear! dear! how stupid I am!  I don’t\nthink I ever saw her more than twice.  I know we used to call Sir Peter,\n‘Sir Peter’—but he came much oftener to see us than Lady Arley did.\nDeborah would have known in a minute.  ‘My lady’—‘your ladyship.’  It\nsounds very strange, and as if it was not natural.  I never thought of it\nbefore; but, now you have named it, I am all in a puzzle.”\n\nIt was very certain Miss Pole would obtain no wise decision from Miss\nMatty, who got more bewildered every moment, and more perplexed as to\netiquettes of address.\n\n“Well, I really think,” said Miss Pole, “I had better just go and tell\nMrs Forrester about our little difficulty.  One sometimes grows nervous;\nand yet one would not have Lady Glenmire think we were quite ignorant of\nthe etiquettes of high life in Cranford.”\n\n“And will you just step in here, dear Miss Pole, as you come back,\nplease, and tell me what you decide upon?  Whatever you and Mrs Forrester\nfix upon, will be quite right, I’m sure.  ‘Lady Arley,’ ‘Sir Peter,’”\nsaid Miss Matty to herself, trying to recall the old forms of words.\n\n“Who is Lady Glenmire?” asked I.\n\n“Oh, she’s the widow of Mr Jamieson—that’s Mrs Jamieson’s late husband,\nyou know—widow of his eldest brother.  Mrs Jamieson was a Miss Walker,\ndaughter of Governor Walker.  ‘Your ladyship.’  My dear, if they fix on\nthat way of speaking, you must just let me practice a little on you\nfirst, for I shall feel so foolish and hot saying it the first time to\nLady Glenmire.”\n\nIt was really a relief to Miss Matty when Mrs Jamieson came on a very\nunpolite errand.  I notice that apathetic people have more quiet\nimpertinence than others; and Mrs Jamieson came now to insinuate pretty\nplainly that she did not particularly wish that the Cranford ladies\nshould call upon her sister-in-law.  I can hardly say how she made this\nclear; for I grew very indignant and warm, while with slow deliberation\nshe was explaining her wishes to Miss Matty, who, a true lady herself,\ncould hardly understand the feeling which made Mrs Jamieson wish to\nappear to her noble sister-in-law as if she only visited “county”\nfamilies.  Miss Matty remained puzzled and perplexed long after I had\nfound out the object of Mrs Jamieson’s visit.\n\nWhen she did understand the drift of the honourable lady’s call, it was\npretty to see with what quiet dignity she received the intimation thus\nuncourteously given.  She was not in the least hurt—she was of too gentle\na spirit for that; nor was she exactly conscious of disapproving of Mrs\nJamieson’s conduct; but there was something of this feeling in her mind,\nI am sure, which made her pass from the subject to others in a less\nflurried and more composed manner than usual.  Mrs Jamieson was, indeed,\nthe more flurried of the two, and I could see she was glad to take her\nleave.\n\nA little while afterwards Miss Pole returned, red and indignant.  “Well!\nto be sure!  You’ve had Mrs Jamieson here, I find from Martha; and we are\nnot to call on Lady Glenmire.  Yes!  I met Mrs Jamieson, half-way between\nhere and Mrs Forrester’s, and she told me; she took me so by surprise, I\nhad nothing to say.  I wish I had thought of something very sharp and\nsarcastic; I dare say I shall to-night.  And Lady Glenmire is but the\nwidow of a Scotch baron after all!  I went on to look at Mrs Forrester’s\nPeerage, to see who this lady was, that is to be kept under a glass case:\nwidow of a Scotch peer—never sat in the House of Lords—and as poor as\nJob, I dare say; and she—fifth daughter of some Mr Campbell or other.\nYou are the daughter of a rector, at any rate, and related to the Arleys;\nand Sir Peter might have been Viscount Arley, every one says.”\n\nMiss Matty tried to soothe Miss Pole, but in vain.  That lady, usually so\nkind and good-humoured, was now in a full flow of anger.\n\n“And I went and ordered a cap this morning, to be quite ready,” said she\nat last, letting out the secret which gave sting to Mrs Jamieson’s\nintimation.  “Mrs Jamieson shall see if it is so easy to get me to make\nfourth at a pool when she has none of her fine Scotch relations with\nher!”\n\nIn coming out of church, the first Sunday on which Lady Glenmire appeared\nin Cranford, we sedulously talked together, and turned our backs on Mrs\nJamieson and her guest.  If we might not call on her, we would not even\nlook at her, though we were dying with curiosity to know what she was\nlike.  We had the comfort of questioning Martha in the afternoon.  Martha\ndid not belong to a sphere of society whose observation could be an\nimplied compliment to Lady Glenmire, and Martha had made good use of her\neyes.\n\n“Well, ma’am! is it the little lady with Mrs Jamieson, you mean?  I\nthought you would like more to know how young Mrs Smith was dressed; her\nbeing a bride.”  (Mrs Smith was the butcher’s wife).\n\nMiss Pole said, “Good gracious me! as if we cared about a Mrs Smith;” but\nwas silent as Martha resumed her speech.\n\n“The little lady in Mrs Jamieson’s pew had on, ma’am, rather an old black\nsilk, and a shepherd’s plaid cloak, ma’am, and very bright black eyes she\nhad, ma’am, and a pleasant, sharp face; not over young, ma’am, but yet, I\nshould guess, younger than Mrs Jamieson herself.  She looked up and down\nthe church, like a bird, and nipped up her petticoats, when she came out,\nas quick and sharp as ever I see.  I’ll tell you what, ma’am, she’s more\nlike Mrs Deacon, at the ‘Coach and Horses,’ nor any one.”\n\n“Hush, Martha!” said Miss Matty, “that’s not respectful.”\n\n“Isn’t it, ma’am?  I beg pardon, I’m sure; but Jem Hearn said so as well.\nHe said, she was just such a sharp, stirring sort of a body”—\n\n“Lady,” said Miss Pole.\n\n“Lady—as Mrs Deacon.”\n\nAnother Sunday passed away, and we still averted our eyes from Mrs\nJamieson and her guest, and made remarks to ourselves that we thought\nwere very severe—almost too much so.  Miss Matty was evidently uneasy at\nour sarcastic manner of speaking.\n\nPerhaps by this time Lady Glenmire had found out that Mrs Jamieson’s was\nnot the gayest, liveliest house in the world; perhaps Mrs Jamieson had\nfound out that most of the county families were in London, and that those\nwho remained in the country were not so alive as they might have been to\nthe circumstance of Lady Glenmire being in their neighbourhood.  Great\nevents spring out of small causes; so I will not pretend to say what\ninduced Mrs Jamieson to alter her determination of excluding the Cranford\nladies, and send notes of invitation all round for a small party on the\nfollowing Tuesday.  Mr Mulliner himself brought them round.  He _would_\nalways ignore the fact of there being a back-door to any house, and gave\na louder rat-tat than his mistress, Mrs Jamieson.  He had three little\nnotes, which he carried in a large basket, in order to impress his\nmistress with an idea of their great weight, though they might easily\nhave gone into his waistcoat pocket.\n\nMiss Matty and I quietly decided that we would have a previous engagement\nat home: it was the evening on which Miss Matty usually made\ncandle-lighters of all the notes and letters of the week; for on Mondays\nher accounts were always made straight—not a penny owing from the week\nbefore; so, by a natural arrangement, making candle-lighters fell upon a\nTuesday evening, and gave us a legitimate excuse for declining Mrs\nJamieson’s invitation.  But before our answer was written, in came Miss\nPole, with an open note in her hand.\n\n“So!” she said.  “Ah!  I see you have got your note, too.  Better late\nthan never.  I could have told my Lady Glenmire she would be glad enough\nof our society before a fortnight was over.”\n\n“Yes,” said Miss Matty, “we’re asked for Tuesday evening.  And perhaps\nyou would just kindly bring your work across and drink tea with us that\nnight.  It is my usual regular time for looking over the last week’s\nbills, and notes, and letters, and making candle-lighters of them; but\nthat does not seem quite reason enough for saying I have a previous\nengagement at home, though I meant to make it do.  Now, if you would\ncome, my conscience would be quite at ease, and luckily the note is not\nwritten yet.”\n\nI saw Miss Pole’s countenance change while Miss Matty was speaking.\n\n“Don’t you mean to go then?” asked she.\n\n“Oh, no!” said, Miss Matty quietly.  “You don’t either, I suppose?”\n\n“I don’t know,” replied Miss Pole.  “Yes, I think I do,” said she, rather\nbriskly; and on seeing Miss Matty look surprised, she added, “You see,\none would not like Mrs Jamieson to think that anything she could do, or\nsay, was of consequence enough to give offence; it would be a kind of\nletting down of ourselves, that I, for one, should not like.  It would be\ntoo flattering to Mrs Jamieson if we allowed her to suppose that what she\nhad said affected us a week, nay ten days afterwards.”\n\n“Well!  I suppose it is wrong to be hurt and annoyed so long about\nanything; and, perhaps, after all, she did not mean to vex us.  But I\nmust say, I could not have brought myself to say the things Mrs Jamieson\ndid about our not calling.  I really don’t think I shall go.”\n\n“Oh, come!  Miss Matty, you must go; you know our friend Mrs Jamieson is\nmuch more phlegmatic than most people, and does not enter into the little\ndelicacies of feeling which you possess in so remarkable a degree.”\n\n“I thought you possessed them, too, that day Mrs Jamieson called to tell\nus not to go,” said Miss Matty innocently.\n\nBut Miss Pole, in addition to her delicacies of feeling, possessed a very\nsmart cap, which she was anxious to show to an admiring world; and so she\nseemed to forget all her angry words uttered not a fortnight before, and\nto be ready to act on what she called the great Christian principle of\n“Forgive and forget”; and she lectured dear Miss Matty so long on this\nhead that she absolutely ended by assuring her it was her duty, as a\ndeceased rector’s daughter, to buy a new cap and go to the party at Mrs\nJamieson’s.  So “we were most happy to accept,” instead of “regretting\nthat we were obliged to decline.”\n\nThe expenditure on dress in Cranford was principally in that one article\nreferred to.  If the heads were buried in smart new caps, the ladies were\nlike ostriches, and cared not what became of their bodies.  Old gowns,\nwhite and venerable collars, any number of brooches, up and down and\neverywhere (some with dogs’ eyes painted in them; some that were like\nsmall picture-frames with mausoleums and weeping-willows neatly executed\nin hair inside; some, again, with miniatures of ladies and gentlemen\nsweetly smiling out of a nest of stiff muslin), old brooches for a\npermanent ornament, and new caps to suit the fashion of the day—the\nladies of Cranford always dressed with chaste elegance and propriety, as\nMiss Barker once prettily expressed it.\n\nAnd with three new caps, and a greater array of brooches than had ever\nbeen seen together at one time since Cranford was a town, did Mrs\nForrester, and Miss Matty, and Miss Pole appear on that memorable Tuesday\nevening.  I counted seven brooches myself on Miss Pole’s dress.  Two were\nfixed negligently in her cap (one was a butterfly made of Scotch pebbles,\nwhich a vivid imagination might believe to be the real insect); one\nfastened her net neckerchief; one her collar; one ornamented the front of\nher gown, midway between her throat and waist; and another adorned the\npoint of her stomacher.  Where the seventh was I have forgotten, but it\nwas somewhere about her, I am sure.\n\nBut I am getting on too fast, in describing the dresses of the company.\nI should first relate the gathering on the way to Mrs Jamieson’s.  That\nlady lived in a large house just outside the town.  A road which had\nknown what it was to be a street ran right before the house, which opened\nout upon it without any intervening garden or court.  Whatever the sun\nwas about, he never shone on the front of that house.  To be sure, the\nliving-rooms were at the back, looking on to a pleasant garden; the front\nwindows only belonged to kitchens and housekeepers’ rooms, and pantries,\nand in one of them Mr Mulliner was reported to sit.  Indeed, looking\naskance, we often saw the back of a head covered with hair powder, which\nalso extended itself over his coat-collar down to his very waist; and\nthis imposing back was always engaged in reading the _St James’s\nChronicle_, opened wide, which, in some degree, accounted for the length\nof time the said newspaper was in reaching us—equal subscribers with Mrs\nJamieson, though, in right of her honourableness, she always had the\nreading of it first.  This very Tuesday, the delay in forwarding the last\nnumber had been particularly aggravating; just when both Miss Pole and\nMiss Matty, the former more especially, had been wanting to see it, in\norder to coach up the Court news ready for the evening’s interview with\naristocracy.  Miss Pole told us she had absolutely taken time by the\nforelock, and been dressed by five o’clock, in order to be ready if the\n_St James’s Chronicle_ should come in at the last moment—the very _St\nJames’s Chronicle_ which the powdered head was tranquilly and composedly\nreading as we passed the accustomed window this evening.\n\n“The impudence of the man!” said Miss Pole, in a low indignant whisper.\n“I should like to ask him whether his mistress pays her quarter-share for\nhis exclusive use.”\n\nWe looked at her in admiration of the courage of her thought; for Mr\nMulliner was an object of great awe to all of us.  He seemed never to\nhave forgotten his condescension in coming to live at Cranford.  Miss\nJenkyns, at times, had stood forth as the undaunted champion of her sex,\nand spoken to him on terms of equality; but even Miss Jenkyns could get\nno higher.  In his pleasantest and most gracious moods he looked like a\nsulky cockatoo.  He did not speak except in gruff monosyllables.  He\nwould wait in the hall when we begged him not to wait, and then look\ndeeply offended because we had kept him there, while, with trembling,\nhasty hands we prepared ourselves for appearing in company.\n\nMiss Pole ventured on a small joke as we went upstairs, intended, though\naddressed to us, to afford Mr Mulliner some slight amusement.  We all\nsmiled, in order to seem as if we felt at our ease, and timidly looked\nfor Mr Mulliner’s sympathy.  Not a muscle of that wooden face had\nrelaxed; and we were grave in an instant.\n\nMrs Jamieson’s drawing-room was cheerful; the evening sun came streaming\ninto it, and the large square window was clustered round with flowers.\nThe furniture was white and gold; not the later style, Louis Quatorze, I\nthink they call it, all shells and twirls; no, Mrs Jamieson’s chairs and\ntables had not a curve or bend about them.  The chair and table legs\ndiminished as they neared the ground, and were straight and square in all\ntheir corners.  The chairs were all a-row against the walls, with the\nexception of four or five which stood in a circle round the fire.  They\nwere railed with white bars across the back and knobbed with gold;\nneither the railings nor the knobs invited to ease.  There was a japanned\ntable devoted to literature, on which lay a Bible, a Peerage, and a\nPrayer-Book.  There was another square Pembroke table dedicated to the\nFine Arts, on which were a kaleidoscope, conversation-cards, puzzle-cards\n(tied together to an interminable length with faded pink satin ribbon),\nand a box painted in fond imitation of the drawings which decorate\ntea-chests.  Carlo lay on the worsted-worked rug, and ungraciously barked\nat us as we entered.  Mrs Jamieson stood up, giving us each a torpid\nsmile of welcome, and looking helplessly beyond us at Mr Mulliner, as if\nshe hoped he would place us in chairs, for, if he did not, she never\ncould.  I suppose he thought we could find our way to the circle round\nthe fire, which reminded me of Stonehenge, I don’t know why.  Lady\nGlenmire came to the rescue of our hostess, and, somehow or other, we\nfound ourselves for the first time placed agreeably, and not formally, in\nMrs Jamieson’s house.  Lady Glenmire, now we had time to look at her,\nproved to be a bright little woman of middle age, who had been very\npretty in the days of her youth, and who was even yet very\npleasant-looking.  I saw Miss Pole appraising her dress in the first five\nminutes, and I take her word when she said the next day—\n\n“My dear! ten pounds would have purchased every stitch she had on—lace\nand all.”\n\nIt was pleasant to suspect that a peeress could be poor, and partly\nreconciled us to the fact that her husband had never sat in the House of\nLords; which, when we first heard of it, seemed a kind of swindling us\nout of our prospects on false pretences; a sort of “A Lord and No Lord”\nbusiness.\n\nWe were all very silent at first.  We were thinking what we could talk\nabout, that should be high enough to interest My Lady.  There had been a\nrise in the price of sugar, which, as preserving-time was near, was a\npiece of intelligence to all our house-keeping hearts, and would have\nbeen the natural topic if Lady Glenmire had not been by.  But we were not\nsure if the peerage ate preserves—much less knew how they were made.  At\nlast, Miss Pole, who had always a great deal of courage and _savoir\nfaire_, spoke to Lady Glenmire, who on her part had seemed just as much\npuzzled to know how to break the silence as we were.\n\n“Has your ladyship been to Court lately?” asked she; and then gave a\nlittle glance round at us, half timid and half triumphant, as much as to\nsay, “See how judiciously I have chosen a subject befitting the rank of\nthe stranger.”\n\n“I never was there in my life,” said Lady Glenmire, with a broad Scotch\naccent, but in a very sweet voice.  And then, as if she had been too\nabrupt, she added: “We very seldom went to London—only twice, in fact,\nduring all my married life; and before I was married my father had far\ntoo large a family” (fifth daughter of Mr Campbell was in all our minds,\nI am sure) “to take us often from our home, even to Edinburgh.  Ye’ll\nhave been in Edinburgh, maybe?” said she, suddenly brightening up with\nthe hope of a common interest.  We had none of us been there; but Miss\nPole had an uncle who once had passed a night there, which was very\npleasant.\n\nMrs Jamieson, meanwhile, was absorbed in wonder why Mr Mulliner did not\nbring the tea; and at length the wonder oozed out of her mouth.\n\n“I had better ring the bell, my dear, had not I?” said Lady Glenmire\nbriskly.\n\n“No—I think not—Mulliner does not like to be hurried.”\n\nWe should have liked our tea, for we dined at an earlier hour than Mrs\nJamieson.  I suspect Mr Mulliner had to finish the _St James’s Chronicle_\nbefore he chose to trouble himself about tea.  His mistress fidgeted and\nfidgeted, and kept saying, “I can’t think why Mulliner does not bring\ntea.  I can’t think what he can be about.”  And Lady Glenmire at last\ngrew quite impatient, but it was a pretty kind of impatience after all;\nand she rang the bell rather sharply, on receiving a half-permission from\nher sister-in-law to do so.  Mr Mulliner appeared in dignified surprise.\n“Oh!” said Mrs Jamieson, “Lady Glenmire rang the bell; I believe it was\nfor tea.”\n\nIn a few minutes tea was brought.  Very delicate was the china, very old\nthe plate, very thin the bread and butter, and very small the lumps of\nsugar.  Sugar was evidently Mrs Jamieson’s favourite economy.  I question\nif the little filigree sugar-tongs, made something like scissors, could\nhave opened themselves wide enough to take up an honest, vulgar\ngood-sized piece; and when I tried to seize two little minnikin pieces at\nonce, so as not to be detected in too many returns to the sugar-basin,\nthey absolutely dropped one, with a little sharp clatter, quite in a\nmalicious and unnatural manner.  But before this happened we had had a\nslight disappointment.  In the little silver jug was cream, in the larger\none was milk.  As soon as Mr Mulliner came in, Carlo began to beg, which\nwas a thing our manners forebade us to do, though I am sure we were just\nas hungry; and Mrs Jamieson said she was certain we would excuse her if\nshe gave her poor dumb Carlo his tea first.  She accordingly mixed a\nsaucerful for him, and put it down for him to lap; and then she told us\nhow intelligent and sensible the dear little fellow was; he knew cream\nquite well, and constantly refused tea with only milk in it: so the milk\nwas left for us; but we silently thought we were quite as intelligent and\nsensible as Carlo, and felt as if insult were added to injury when we\nwere called upon to admire the gratitude evinced by his wagging his tail\nfor the cream which should have been ours.\n\nAfter tea we thawed down into common-life subjects.  We were thankful to\nLady Glenmire for having proposed some more bread and butter, and this\nmutual want made us better acquainted with her than we should ever have\nbeen with talking about the Court, though Miss Pole did say she had hoped\nto know how the dear Queen was from some one who had seen her.\n\nThe friendship begun over bread and butter extended on to cards.  Lady\nGlenmire played Preference to admiration, and was a complete authority as\nto Ombre and Quadrille.  Even Miss Pole quite forgot to say “my lady,”\nand “your ladyship,” and said “Basto! ma’am”; “you have Spadille, I\nbelieve,” just as quietly as if we had never held the great Cranford\nParliament on the subject of the proper mode of addressing a peeress.\n\nAs a proof of how thoroughly we had forgotten that we were in the\npresence of one who might have sat down to tea with a coronet, instead of\na cap, on her head, Mrs Forrester related a curious little fact to Lady\nGlenmire—an anecdote known to the circle of her intimate friends, but of\nwhich even Mrs Jamieson was not aware.  It related to some fine old lace,\nthe sole relic of better days, which Lady Glenmire was admiring on Mrs\nForrester’s collar.\n\n“Yes,” said that lady, “such lace cannot be got now for either love or\nmoney; made by the nuns abroad, they tell me.  They say that they can’t\nmake it now even there.  But perhaps they can, now they’ve passed the\nCatholic Emancipation Bill.  I should not wonder.  But, in the meantime,\nI treasure up my lace very much.  I daren’t even trust the washing of it\nto my maid” (the little charity school-girl I have named before, but who\nsounded well as “my maid”).  “I always wash it myself.  And once it had a\nnarrow escape.  Of course, your ladyship knows that such lace must never\nbe starched or ironed.  Some people wash it in sugar and water, and some\nin coffee, to make it the right yellow colour; but I myself have a very\ngood receipt for washing it in milk, which stiffens it enough, and gives\nit a very good creamy colour.  Well, ma’am, I had tacked it together (and\nthe beauty of this fine lace is that, when it is wet, it goes into a very\nlittle space), and put it to soak in milk, when, unfortunately, I left\nthe room; on my return, I found pussy on the table, looking very like a\nthief, but gulping very uncomfortably, as if she was half-chocked with\nsomething she wanted to swallow and could not.  And, would you believe\nit?  At first I pitied her, and said ‘Poor pussy! poor pussy!’ till, all\nat once, I looked and saw the cup of milk empty—cleaned out!  ‘You\nnaughty cat!’ said I, and I believe I was provoked enough to give her a\nslap, which did no good, but only helped the lace down—just as one slaps\na choking child on the back.  I could have cried, I was so vexed; but I\ndetermined I would not give the lace up without a struggle for it.  I\nhoped the lace might disagree with her, at any rate; but it would have\nbeen too much for Job, if he had seen, as I did, that cat come in, quite\nplacid and purring, not a quarter of an hour after, and almost expecting\nto be stroked.  ‘No, pussy!’ said I, ‘if you have any conscience you\nought not to expect that!’  And then a thought struck me; and I rang the\nbell for my maid, and sent her to Mr Hoggins, with my compliments, and\nwould he be kind enough to lend me one of his top-boots for an hour?  I\ndid not think there was anything odd in the message; but Jenny said the\nyoung men in the surgery laughed as if they would be ill at my wanting a\ntop-boot.  When it came, Jenny and I put pussy in, with her forefeet\nstraight down, so that they were fastened, and could not scratch, and we\ngave her a teaspoonful of current-jelly in which (your ladyship must\nexcuse me) I had mixed some tartar emetic.  I shall never forget how\nanxious I was for the next half-hour.  I took pussy to my own room, and\nspread a clean towel on the floor.  I could have kissed her when she\nreturned the lace to sight, very much as it had gone down.  Jenny had\nboiling water ready, and we soaked it and soaked it, and spread it on a\nlavender-bush in the sun before I could touch it again, even to put it in\nmilk.  But now your ladyship would never guess that it had been in\npussy’s inside.”\n\nWe found out, in the course of the evening, that Lady Glenmire was going\nto pay Mrs Jamieson a long visit, as she had given up her apartments in\nEdinburgh, and had no ties to take her back there in a hurry.  On the\nwhole, we were rather glad to hear this, for she had made a pleasant\nimpression upon us; and it was also very comfortable to find, from things\nwhich dropped out in the course of conversation, that, in addition to\nmany other genteel qualities, she was far removed from the “vulgarity of\nwealth.”\n\n“Don’t you find it very unpleasant walking?” asked Mrs Jamieson, as our\nrespective servants were announced.  It was a pretty regular question\nfrom Mrs Jamieson, who had her own carriage in the coach-house, and\nalways went out in a sedan-chair to the very shortest distances.  The\nanswers were nearly as much a matter of course.\n\n“Oh dear, no! it is so pleasant and still at night!”  “Such a refreshment\nafter the excitement of a party!”  “The stars are so beautiful!”  This\nlast was from Miss Matty.\n\n“Are you fond of astronomy?” Lady Glenmire asked.\n\n“Not very,” replied Miss Matty, rather confused at the moment to remember\nwhich was astronomy and which was astrology—but the answer was true under\neither circumstance, for she read, and was slightly alarmed at Francis\nMoore’s astrological predictions; and, as to astronomy, in a private and\nconfidential conversation, she had told me she never could believe that\nthe earth was moving constantly, and that she would not believe it if she\ncould, it made her feel so tired and dizzy whenever she thought about it.\n\nIn our pattens we picked our way home with extra care that night, so\nrefined and delicate were our perceptions after drinking tea with “my\nlady.”\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX—SIGNOR BRUNONI\n\n\nSOON after the events of which I gave an account in my last paper, I was\nsummoned home by my father’s illness; and for a time I forgot, in anxiety\nabout him, to wonder how my dear friends at Cranford were getting on, or\nhow Lady Glenmire could reconcile herself to the dulness of the long\nvisit which she was still paying to her sister-in-law, Mrs Jamieson.\nWhen my father grew a little stronger I accompanied him to the seaside,\nso that altogether I seemed banished from Cranford, and was deprived of\nthe opportunity of hearing any chance intelligence of the dear little\ntown for the greater part of that year.\n\nLate in November—when we had returned home again, and my father was once\nmore in good health—I received a letter from Miss Matty; and a very\nmysterious letter it was.  She began many sentences without ending them,\nrunning them one into another, in much the same confused sort of way in\nwhich written words run together on blotting-paper.  All I could make out\nwas that, if my father was better (which she hoped he was), and would\ntake warning and wear a great-coat from Michaelmas to Lady-day, if\nturbans were in fashion, could I tell her?  Such a piece of gaiety was\ngoing to happen as had not been seen or known of since Wombwell’s lions\ncame, when one of them ate a little child’s arm; and she was, perhaps,\ntoo old to care about dress, but a new cap she must have; and, having\nheard that turbans were worn, and some of the county families likely to\ncome, she would like to look tidy, if I would bring her a cap from the\nmilliner I employed; and oh, dear! how careless of her to forget that she\nwrote to beg I would come and pay her a visit next Tuesday; when she\nhoped to have something to offer me in the way of amusement, which she\nwould not now more particularly describe, only sea-green was her\nfavourite colour.  So she ended her letter; but in a P.S. she added, she\nthought she might as well tell me what was the peculiar attraction to\nCranford just now; Signor Brunoni was going to exhibit his wonderful\nmagic in the Cranford Assembly Rooms on Wednesday and Friday evening in\nthe following week.\n\nI was very glad to accept the invitation from my dear Miss Matty,\nindependently of the conjuror, and most particularly anxious to prevent\nher from disfiguring her small, gentle, mousey face with a great\nSaracen’s head turban; and accordingly, I bought her a pretty, neat,\nmiddle-aged cap, which, however, was rather a disappointment to her when,\non my arrival, she followed me into my bedroom, ostensibly to poke the\nfire, but in reality, I do believe, to see if the sea-green turban was\nnot inside the cap-box with which I had travelled.  It was in vain that I\ntwirled the cap round on my hand to exhibit back and side fronts: her\nheart had been set upon a turban, and all she could do was to say, with\nresignation in her look and voice—\n\n“I am sure you did your best, my dear.  It is just like the caps all the\nladies in Cranford are wearing, and they have had theirs for a year, I\ndare say.  I should have liked something newer, I confess—something more\nlike the turbans Miss Betty Barker tells me Queen Adelaide wears; but it\nis very pretty, my dear.  And I dare say lavender will wear better than\nsea-green.  Well, after all, what is dress, that we should care anything\nabout it?  You’ll tell me if you want anything, my dear.  Here is the\nbell.  I suppose turbans have not got down to Drumble yet?”\n\nSo saying, the dear old lady gently bemoaned herself out of the room,\nleaving me to dress for the evening, when, as she informed me, she\nexpected Miss Pole and Mrs Forrester, and she hoped I should not feel\nmyself too much tired to join the party.  Of course I should not; and I\nmade some haste to unpack and arrange my dress; but, with all my speed, I\nheard the arrivals and the buzz of conversation in the next room before I\nwas ready.  Just as I opened the door, I caught the words, “I was foolish\nto expect anything very genteel out of the Drumble shops; poor girl! she\ndid her best, I’ve no doubt.”  But, for all that, I had rather that she\nblamed Drumble and me than disfigured herself with a turban.\n\nMiss Pole was always the person, in the trio of Cranford ladies now\nassembled, to have had adventures.  She was in the habit of spending the\nmorning in rambling from shop to shop, not to purchase anything (except\nan occasional reel of cotton or a piece of tape), but to see the new\narticles and report upon them, and to collect all the stray pieces of\nintelligence in the town.  She had a way, too, of demurely popping hither\nand thither into all sorts of places to gratify her curiosity on any\npoint—a way which, if she had not looked so very genteel and prim, might\nhave been considered impertinent.  And now, by the expressive way in\nwhich she cleared her throat, and waited for all minor subjects (such as\ncaps and turbans) to be cleared off the course, we knew she had something\nvery particular to relate, when the due pause came—and I defy any people\npossessed of common modesty to keep up a conversation long, where one\namong them sits up aloft in silence, looking down upon all the things\nthey chance to say as trivial and contemptible compared to what they\ncould disclose, if properly entreated.  Miss Pole began—\n\n“As I was stepping out of Gordon’s shop to-day, I chanced to go into the\n‘George’ (my Betty has a second-cousin who is chambermaid there, and I\nthought Betty would like to hear how she was), and, not seeing anyone\nabout, I strolled up the staircase, and found myself in the passage\nleading to the Assembly Room (you and I remember the Assembly Room, I am\nsure, Miss Matty! and the minuets de la cour!); so I went on, not\nthinking of what I was about, when, all at once, I perceived that I was\nin the middle of the preparations for to-morrow night—the room being\ndivided with great clothes-maids, over which Crosby’s men were tacking\nred flannel; very dark and odd it seemed; it quite bewildered me, and I\nwas going on behind the screens, in my absence of mind, when a gentleman\n(quite the gentleman, I can assure you) stepped forwards and asked if I\nhad any business he could arrange for me.  He spoke such pretty broken\nEnglish, I could not help thinking of Thaddeus of Warsaw, and the\nHungarian Brothers, and Santo Sebastiani; and while I was busy picturing\nhis past life to myself, he had bowed me out of the room.  But wait a\nminute!  You have not heard half my story yet!  I was going downstairs,\nwhen who should I meet but Betty’s second-cousin.  So, of course, I\nstopped to speak to her for Betty’s sake; and she told me that I had\nreally seen the conjuror—the gentleman who spoke broken English was\nSignor Brunoni himself.  Just at this moment he passed us on the stairs,\nmaking such a graceful bow! in reply to which I dropped a curtsey—all\nforeigners have such polite manners, one catches something of it.  But\nwhen he had gone downstairs, I bethought me that I had dropped my glove\nin the Assembly Room (it was safe in my muff all the time, but I never\nfound it till afterwards); so I went back, and, just as I was creeping up\nthe passage left on one side of the great screen that goes nearly across\nthe room, who should I see but the very same gentleman that had met me\nbefore, and passed me on the stairs, coming now forwards from the inner\npart of the room, to which there is no entrance—you remember, Miss\nMatty—and just repeating, in his pretty broken English, the inquiry if I\nhad any business there—I don’t mean that he put it quite so bluntly, but\nhe seemed very determined that I should not pass the screen—so, of\ncourse, I explained about my glove, which, curiously enough, I found at\nthat very moment.”\n\nMiss Pole, then, had seen the conjuror—the real, live conjuror! and\nnumerous were the questions we all asked her.  “Had he a beard?”  “Was he\nyoung, or old?”  “Fair, or dark?”  “Did he look”—(unable to shape my\nquestion prudently, I put it in another form)—“How did he look?”  In\nshort, Miss Pole was the heroine of the evening, owing to her morning’s\nencounter.  If she was not the rose (that is to say the conjuror) she had\nbeen near it.\n\nConjuration, sleight of hand, magic, witchcraft, were the subjects of the\nevening.  Miss Pole was slightly sceptical, and inclined to think there\nmight be a scientific solution found for even the proceedings of the\nWitch of Endor.  Mrs Forrester believed everything, from ghosts to\ndeath-watches.  Miss Matty ranged between the two—always convinced by the\nlast speaker.  I think she was naturally more inclined to Mrs Forrester’s\nside, but a desire of proving herself a worthy sister to Miss Jenkyns\nkept her equally balanced—Miss Jenkyns, who would never allow a servant\nto call the little rolls of tallow that formed themselves round candles\n“winding-sheets,” but insisted on their being spoken of as\n“roley-poleys!”  A sister of hers to be superstitious!  It would never\ndo.\n\nAfter tea, I was despatched downstairs into the dining-parlour for that\nvolume of the old Encyclopædia which contained the nouns beginning with\nC, in order that Miss Pole might prime herself with scientific\nexplanations for the tricks of the following evening.  It spoilt the pool\nat Preference which Miss Matty and Mrs Forrester had been looking forward\nto, for Miss Pole became so much absorbed in her subject, and the plates\nby which it was illustrated, that we felt it would be cruel to disturb\nher otherwise than by one or two well-timed yawns, which I threw in now\nand then, for I was really touched by the meek way in which the two\nladies were bearing their disappointment.  But Miss Pole only read the\nmore zealously, imparting to us no more information than this—\n\n“Ah! I see; I comprehend perfectly.  A represents the ball.  Put A\nbetween B and D—no! between C and F, and turn the second joint of the\nthird finger of your left hand over the wrist of your right H.  Very\nclear indeed!  My dear Mrs Forrester, conjuring and witchcraft is a mere\naffair of the alphabet.  Do let me read you this one passage?”\n\nMrs Forrester implored Miss Pole to spare her, saying, from a child\nupwards, she never could understand being read aloud to; and I dropped\nthe pack of cards, which I had been shuffling very audibly, and by this\ndiscreet movement I obliged Miss Pole to perceive that Preference was to\nhave been the order of the evening, and to propose, rather unwillingly,\nthat the pool should commence.  The pleasant brightness that stole over\nthe other two ladies’ faces on this!  Miss Matty had one or two twinges\nof self-reproach for having interrupted Miss Pole in her studies: and did\nnot remember her cards well, or give her full attention to the game,\nuntil she had soothed her conscience by offering to lend the volume of\nthe Encyclopædia to Miss Pole, who accepted it thankfully, and said Betty\nshould take it home when she came with the lantern.\n\nThe next evening we were all in a little gentle flutter at the idea of\nthe gaiety before us.  Miss Matty went up to dress betimes, and hurried\nme until I was ready, when we found we had an hour-and-a-half to wait\nbefore the “doors opened at seven precisely.”  And we had only twenty\nyards to go!  However, as Miss Matty said, it would not do to get too\nmuch absorbed in anything, and forget the time; so she thought we had\nbetter sit quietly, without lighting the candles, till five minutes to\nseven.  So Miss Matty dozed, and I knitted.\n\nAt length we set off; and at the door under the carriage-way at the\n“George,” we met Mrs Forrester and Miss Pole: the latter was discussing\nthe subject of the evening with more vehemence than ever, and throwing\nX’s and B’s at our heads like hailstones.  She had even copied one or two\nof the “receipts”—as she called them—for the different tricks, on backs\nof letters, ready to explain and to detect Signor Brunoni’s arts.\n\nWe went into the cloak-room adjoining the Assembly Room; Miss Matty gave\na sigh or two to her departed youth, and the remembrance of the last time\nshe had been there, as she adjusted her pretty new cap before the\nstrange, quaint old mirror in the cloak-room.  The Assembly Room had been\nadded to the inn, about a hundred years before, by the different county\nfamilies, who met together there once a month during the winter to dance\nand play at cards.  Many a county beauty had first swung through the\nminuet that she afterwards danced before Queen Charlotte in this very\nroom.  It was said that one of the Gunnings had graced the apartment with\nher beauty; it was certain that a rich and beautiful widow, Lady\nWilliams, had here been smitten with the noble figure of a young artist,\nwho was staying with some family in the neighbourhood for professional\npurposes, and accompanied his patrons to the Cranford Assembly.  And a\npretty bargain poor Lady Williams had of her handsome husband, if all\ntales were true.  Now, no beauty blushed and dimpled along the sides of\nthe Cranford Assembly Room; no handsome artist won hearts by his bow,\n_chapeau bras_ in hand; the old room was dingy; the salmon-coloured paint\nhad faded into a drab; great pieces of plaster had chipped off from the\nfine wreaths and festoons on its walls; but still a mouldy odour of\naristocracy lingered about the place, and a dusty recollection of the\ndays that were gone made Miss Matty and Mrs Forrester bridle up as they\nentered, and walk mincingly up the room, as if there were a number of\ngenteel observers, instead of two little boys with a stick of toffee\nbetween them with which to beguile the time.\n\nWe stopped short at the second front row; I could hardly understand why,\nuntil I heard Miss Pole ask a stray waiter if any of the county families\nwere expected; and when he shook his head, and believed not, Mrs\nForrester and Miss Matty moved forwards, and our party represented a\nconversational square.  The front row was soon augmented and enriched by\nLady Glenmire and Mrs Jamieson.  We six occupied the two front rows, and\nour aristocratic seclusion was respected by the groups of shop-keepers\nwho strayed in from time to time and huddled together on the back\nbenches.  At least I conjectured so, from the noise they made, and the\nsonorous bumps they gave in sitting down; but when, in weariness of the\nobstinate green curtain that would not draw up, but would stare at me\nwith two odd eyes, seen through holes, as in the old tapestry story, I\nwould fain have looked round at the merry chattering people behind me,\nMiss Pole clutched my arm, and begged me not to turn, for “it was not the\nthing.”  What “the thing” was, I never could find out, but it must have\nbeen something eminently dull and tiresome.  However, we all sat eyes\nright, square front, gazing at the tantalising curtain, and hardly\nspeaking intelligibly, we were so afraid of being caught in the vulgarity\nof making any noise in a place of public amusement.  Mrs Jamieson was the\nmost fortunate, for she fell asleep.\n\nAt length the eyes disappeared—the curtain quivered—one side went up\nbefore the other, which stuck fast; it was dropped again, and, with a\nfresh effort, and a vigorous pull from some unseen hand, it flew up,\nrevealing to our sight a magnificent gentleman in the Turkish costume,\nseated before a little table, gazing at us (I should have said with the\nsame eyes that I had last seen through the hole in the curtain) with calm\nand condescending dignity, “like a being of another sphere,” as I heard a\nsentimental voice ejaculate behind me.\n\n“That’s not Signor Brunoni!” said Miss Pole decidedly; and so audibly\nthat I am sure he heard, for he glanced down over his flowing beard at\nour party with an air of mute reproach.  “Signor Brunoni had no beard—but\nperhaps he’ll come soon.”  So she lulled herself into patience.\nMeanwhile, Miss Matty had reconnoitred through her eye-glass, wiped it,\nand looked again.  Then she turned round, and said to me, in a kind,\nmild, sorrowful tone—\n\n“You see, my dear, turbans _are_ worn.”\n\nBut we had no time for more conversation.  The Grand Turk, as Miss Pole\nchose to call him, arose and announced himself as Signor Brunoni.\n\n“I don’t believe him!” exclaimed Miss Pole, in a defiant manner.  He\nlooked at her again, with the same dignified upbraiding in his\ncountenance.  “I don’t!” she repeated more positively than ever.  “Signor\nBrunoni had not got that muffy sort of thing about his chin, but looked\nlike a close-shaved Christian gentleman.”\n\nMiss Pole’s energetic speeches had the good effect of wakening up Mrs\nJamieson, who opened her eyes wide, in sign of the deepest attention—a\nproceeding which silenced Miss Pole and encouraged the Grand Turk to\nproceed, which he did in very broken English—so broken that there was no\ncohesion between the parts of his sentences; a fact which he himself\nperceived at last, and so left off speaking and proceeded to action.\n\nNow we _were_ astonished.  How he did his tricks I could not imagine; no,\nnot even when Miss Pole pulled out her pieces of paper and began reading\naloud—or at least in a very audible whisper—the separate “receipts” for\nthe most common of his tricks.  If ever I saw a man frown and look\nenraged, I saw the Grand Turk frown at Miss Pole; but, as she said, what\ncould be expected but unchristian looks from a Mussulman?  If Miss Pole\nwere sceptical, and more engrossed with her receipts and diagrams than\nwith his tricks, Miss Matty and Mrs Forrester were mystified and\nperplexed to the highest degree.  Mrs Jamieson kept taking her spectacles\noff and wiping them, as if she thought it was something defective in them\nwhich made the legerdemain; and Lady Glenmire, who had seen many curious\nsights in Edinburgh, was very much struck with the tricks, and would not\nat all agree with Miss Pole, who declared that anybody could do them with\na little practice, and that she would, herself, undertake to do all he\ndid, with two hours given to study the Encyclopædia and make her third\nfinger flexible.\n\nAt last Miss Matty and Mrs Forrester became perfectly awestricken.  They\nwhispered together.  I sat just behind them, so I could not help hearing\nwhat they were saying.  Miss Matty asked Mrs Forrester “if she thought it\nwas quite right to have come to see such things?  She could not help\nfearing they were lending encouragement to something that was not quite”—\nA little shake of the head filled up the blank.  Mrs Forrester replied,\nthat the same thought had crossed her mind; she too was feeling very\nuncomfortable, it was so very strange.  She was quite certain that it was\nher pocket-handkerchief which was in that loaf just now; and it had been\nin her own hand not five minutes before.  She wondered who had furnished\nthe bread?  She was sure it could not be Dakin, because he was the\nchurchwarden.  Suddenly Miss Matty half-turned towards me—\n\n“Will you look, my dear—you are a stranger in the town, and it won’t give\nrise to unpleasant reports—will you just look round and see if the rector\nis here?  If he is, I think we may conclude that this wonderful man is\nsanctioned by the Church, and that will be a great relief to my mind.”\n\nI looked, and I saw the tall, thin, dry, dusty rector, sitting surrounded\nby National School boys, guarded by troops of his own sex from any\napproach of the many Cranford spinsters.  His kind face was all agape\nwith broad smiles, and the boys around him were in chinks of laughing.  I\ntold Miss Matty that the Church was smiling approval, which set her mind\nat ease.\n\nI have never named Mr Hayter, the rector, because I, as a well-to-do and\nhappy young woman, never came in contact with him.  He was an old\nbachelor, but as afraid of matrimonial reports getting abroad about him\nas any girl of eighteen: and he would rush into a shop or dive down an\nentry, sooner than encounter any of the Cranford ladies in the street;\nand, as for the Preference parties, I did not wonder at his not accepting\ninvitations to them.  To tell the truth, I always suspected Miss Pole of\nhaving given very vigorous chase to Mr Hayter when he first came to\nCranford; and not the less, because now she appeared to share so vividly\nin his dread lest her name should ever be coupled with his.  He found all\nhis interests among the poor and helpless; he had treated the National\nSchool boys this very night to the performance; and virtue was for once\nits own reward, for they guarded him right and left, and clung round him\nas if he had been the queen-bee and they the swarm.  He felt so safe in\ntheir environment that he could even afford to give our party a bow as we\nfiled out.  Miss Pole ignored his presence, and pretended to be absorbed\nin convincing us that we had been cheated, and had not seen Signor\nBrunoni after all.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X—THE PANIC\n\n\nI THINK a series of circumstances dated from Signor Brunoni’s visit to\nCranford, which seemed at the time connected in our minds with him,\nthough I don’t know that he had anything really to do with them.  All at\nonce all sorts of uncomfortable rumours got afloat in the town.  There\nwere one or two robberies—real _bonâ fide_ robberies; men had up before\nthe magistrates and committed for trial—and that seemed to make us all\nafraid of being robbed; and for a long time, at Miss Matty’s, I know, we\nused to make a regular expedition all round the kitchens and cellars\nevery night, Miss Matty leading the way, armed with the poker, I\nfollowing with the hearth-brush, and Martha carrying the shovel and\nfire-irons with which to sound the alarm; and by the accidental hitting\ntogether of them she often frightened us so much that we bolted ourselves\nup, all three together, in the back-kitchen, or store-room, or wherever\nwe happened to be, till, when our affright was over, we recollected\nourselves and set out afresh with double valiance.  By day we heard\nstrange stories from the shopkeepers and cottagers, of carts that went\nabout in the dead of night, drawn by horses shod with felt, and guarded\nby men in dark clothes, going round the town, no doubt in search of some\nunwatched house or some unfastened door.\n\nMiss Pole, who affected great bravery herself, was the principal person\nto collect and arrange these reports so as to make them assume their most\nfearful aspect.  But we discovered that she had begged one of Mr\nHoggins’s worn-out hats to hang up in her lobby, and we (at least I) had\ndoubts as to whether she really would enjoy the little adventure of\nhaving her house broken into, as she protested she should.  Miss Matty\nmade no secret of being an arrant coward, but she went regularly through\nher housekeeper’s duty of inspection—only the hour for this became\nearlier and earlier, till at last we went the rounds at half-past six,\nand Miss Matty adjourned to bed soon after seven, “in order to get the\nnight over the sooner.”\n\nCranford had so long piqued itself on being an honest and moral town that\nit had grown to fancy itself too genteel and well-bred to be otherwise,\nand felt the stain upon its character at this time doubly.  But we\ncomforted ourselves with the assurance which we gave to each other that\nthe robberies could never have been committed by any Cranford person; it\nmust have been a stranger or strangers who brought this disgrace upon the\ntown, and occasioned as many precautions as if we were living among the\nRed Indians or the French.\n\nThis last comparison of our nightly state of defence and fortification\nwas made by Mrs Forrester, whose father had served under General Burgoyne\nin the American war, and whose husband had fought the French in Spain.\nShe indeed inclined to the idea that, in some way, the French were\nconnected with the small thefts, which were ascertained facts, and the\nburglaries and highway robberies, which were rumours.  She had been\ndeeply impressed with the idea of French spies at some time in her life;\nand the notion could never be fairly eradicated, but sprang up again from\ntime to time.  And now her theory was this:—The Cranford people respected\nthemselves too much, and were too grateful to the aristocracy who were so\nkind as to live near the town, ever to disgrace their bringing up by\nbeing dishonest or immoral; therefore, we must believe that the robbers\nwere strangers—if strangers, why not foreigners?—if foreigners, who so\nlikely as the French?  Signor Brunoni spoke broken English like a\nFrenchman; and, though he wore a turban like a Turk, Mrs Forrester had\nseen a print of Madame de Staël with a turban on, and another of Mr Denon\nin just such a dress as that in which the conjuror had made his\nappearance, showing clearly that the French, as well as the Turks, wore\nturbans.  There could be no doubt Signor Brunoni was a Frenchman—a French\nspy come to discover the weak and undefended places of England, and\ndoubtless he had his accomplices.  For her part, she, Mrs Forrester, had\nalways had her own opinion of Miss Pole’s adventure at the “George\nInn”—seeing two men where only one was believed to be.  French people had\nways and means which, she was thankful to say, the English knew nothing\nabout; and she had never felt quite easy in her mind about going to see\nthat conjuror—it was rather too much like a forbidden thing, though the\nrector was there.  In short, Mrs Forrester grew more excited than we had\never known her before, and, being an officer’s daughter and widow, we\nlooked up to her opinion, of course.\n\nReally I do not know how much was true or false in the reports which flew\nabout like wildfire just at this time; but it seemed to me then that\nthere was every reason to believe that at Mardon (a small town about\neight miles from Cranford) houses and shops were entered by holes made in\nthe walls, the bricks being silently carried away in the dead of the\nnight, and all done so quietly that no sound was heard either in or out\nof the house.  Miss Matty gave it up in despair when she heard of this.\n“What was the use,” said she, “of locks and bolts, and bells to the\nwindows, and going round the house every night?  That last trick was fit\nfor a conjuror.  Now she did believe that Signor Brunoni was at the\nbottom of it.”\n\nOne afternoon, about five o’clock, we were startled by a hasty knock at\nthe door.  Miss Matty bade me run and tell Martha on no account to open\nthe door till she (Miss Matty) had reconnoitred through the window; and\nshe armed herself with a footstool to drop down on the head of the\nvisitor, in case he should show a face covered with black crape, as he\nlooked up in answer to her inquiry of who was there.  But it was nobody\nbut Miss Pole and Betty.  The former came upstairs, carrying a little\nhand-basket, and she was evidently in a state of great agitation.\n\n“Take care of that!” said she to me, as I offered to relieve her of her\nbasket.  “It’s my plate.  I am sure there is a plan to rob my house\nto-night.  I am come to throw myself on your hospitality, Miss Matty.\nBetty is going to sleep with her cousin at the ‘George.’  I can sit up\nhere all night if you will allow me; but my house is so far from any\nneighbours, and I don’t believe we could be heard if we screamed ever\nso!”\n\n“But,” said Miss Matty, “what has alarmed you so much?  Have you seen any\nmen lurking about the house?”\n\n“Oh, yes!” answered Miss Pole.  “Two very bad-looking men have gone three\ntimes past the house, very slowly; and an Irish beggar-woman came not\nhalf-an-hour ago, and all but forced herself in past Betty, saying her\nchildren were starving, and she must speak to the mistress.  You see, she\nsaid ‘mistress,’ though there was a hat hanging up in the hall, and it\nwould have been more natural to have said ‘master.’  But Betty shut the\ndoor in her face, and came up to me, and we got the spoons together, and\nsat in the parlour-window watching till we saw Thomas Jones going from\nhis work, when we called to him and asked him to take care of us into the\ntown.”\n\nWe might have triumphed over Miss Pole, who had professed such bravery\nuntil she was frightened; but we were too glad to perceive that she\nshared in the weaknesses of humanity to exult over her; and I gave up my\nroom to her very willingly, and shared Miss Matty’s bed for the night.\nBut before we retired, the two ladies rummaged up, out of the recesses of\ntheir memory, such horrid stories of robbery and murder that I quite\nquaked in my shoes.  Miss Pole was evidently anxious to prove that such\nterrible events had occurred within her experience that she was justified\nin her sudden panic; and Miss Matty did not like to be outdone, and\ncapped every story with one yet more horrible, till it reminded me oddly\nenough, of an old story I had read somewhere, of a nightingale and a\nmusician, who strove one against the other which could produce the most\nadmirable music, till poor Philomel dropped down dead.\n\nOne of the stories that haunted me for a long time afterwards was of a\ngirl who was left in charge of a great house in Cumberland on some\nparticular fair-day, when the other servants all went off to the\ngaieties.  The family were away in London, and a pedlar came by, and\nasked to leave his large and heavy pack in the kitchen, saying he would\ncall for it again at night; and the girl (a gamekeeper’s daughter),\nroaming about in search of amusement, chanced to hit upon a gun hanging\nup in the hall, and took it down to look at the chasing; and it went off\nthrough the open kitchen door, hit the pack, and a slow dark thread of\nblood came oozing out. (How Miss Pole enjoyed this part of the story,\ndwelling on each word as if she loved it!)  She rather hurried over the\nfurther account of the girl’s bravery, and I have but a confused idea\nthat, somehow, she baffled the robbers with Italian irons, heated\nred-hot, and then restored to blackness by being dipped in grease.\n\nWe parted for the night with an awe-stricken wonder as to what we should\nhear of in the morning—and, on my part, with a vehement desire for the\nnight to be over and gone: I was so afraid lest the robbers should have\nseen, from some dark lurking-place, that Miss Pole had carried off her\nplate, and thus have a double motive for attacking our house.\n\nBut until Lady Glenmire came to call next day we heard of nothing\nunusual.  The kitchen fire-irons were in exactly the same position\nagainst the back door as when Martha and I had skilfully piled them up,\nlike spillikins, ready to fall with an awful clatter if only a cat had\ntouched the outside panels.  I had wondered what we should all do if thus\nawakened and alarmed, and had proposed to Miss Matty that we should cover\nup our faces under the bedclothes so that there should be no danger of\nthe robbers thinking that we could identify them; but Miss Matty, who was\ntrembling very much, scouted this idea, and said we owed it to society to\napprehend them, and that she should certainly do her best to lay hold of\nthem and lock them up in the garret till morning.\n\nWhen Lady Glenmire came, we almost felt jealous of her.  Mrs Jamieson’s\nhouse had really been attacked; at least there were men’s footsteps to be\nseen on the flower borders, underneath the kitchen windows, “where nae\nmen should be;” and Carlo had barked all through the night as if\nstrangers were abroad.  Mrs Jamieson had been awakened by Lady Glenmire,\nand they had rung the bell which communicated with Mr Mulliner’s room in\nthe third storey, and when his night-capped head had appeared over the\nbannisters, in answer to the summons, they had told him of their alarm,\nand the reasons for it; whereupon he retreated into his bedroom, and\nlocked the door (for fear of draughts, as he informed them in the\nmorning), and opened the window, and called out valiantly to say, if the\nsupposed robbers would come to him he would fight them; but, as Lady\nGlenmire observed, that was but poor comfort, since they would have to\npass by Mrs Jamieson’s room and her own before they could reach him, and\nmust be of a very pugnacious disposition indeed if they neglected the\nopportunities of robbery presented by the unguarded lower storeys, to go\nup to a garret, and there force a door in order to get at the champion of\nthe house.  Lady Glenmire, after waiting and listening for some time in\nthe drawing-room, had proposed to Mrs Jamieson that they should go to\nbed; but that lady said she should not feel comfortable unless she sat up\nand watched; and, accordingly, she packed herself warmly up on the sofa,\nwhere she was found by the housemaid, when she came into the room at six\no’clock, fast asleep; but Lady Glenmire went to bed, and kept awake all\nnight.\n\nWhen Miss Pole heard of this, she nodded her head in great satisfaction.\nShe had been sure we should hear of something happening in Cranford that\nnight; and we had heard.  It was clear enough they had first proposed to\nattack her house; but when they saw that she and Betty were on their\nguard, and had carried off the plate, they had changed their tactics and\ngone to Mrs Jamieson’s, and no one knew what might have happened if Carlo\nhad not barked, like a good dog as he was!\n\nPoor Carlo! his barking days were nearly over.  Whether the gang who\ninfested the neighbourhood were afraid of him, or whether they were\nrevengeful enough, for the way in which he had baffled them on the night\nin question, to poison him; or whether, as some among the more uneducated\npeople thought, he died of apoplexy, brought on by too much feeding and\ntoo little exercise; at any rate, it is certain that, two days after this\neventful night, Carlo was found dead, with his poor legs stretched out\nstiff in the attitude of running, as if by such unusual exertion he could\nescape the sure pursuer, Death.\n\nWe were all sorry for Carlo, the old familiar friend who had snapped at\nus for so many years; and the mysterious mode of his death made us very\nuncomfortable.  Could Signor Brunoni be at the bottom of this?  He had\napparently killed a canary with only a word of command; his will seemed\nof deadly force; who knew but what he might yet be lingering in the\nneighbourhood willing all sorts of awful things!\n\nWe whispered these fancies among ourselves in the evenings; but in the\nmornings our courage came back with the daylight, and in a week’s time we\nhad got over the shock of Carlo’s death; all but Mrs Jamieson.  She, poor\nthing, felt it as she had felt no event since her husband’s death;\nindeed, Miss Pole said, that as the Honourable Mr Jamieson drank a good\ndeal, and occasioned her much uneasiness, it was possible that Carlo’s\ndeath might be the greater affliction.  But there was always a tinge of\ncynicism in Miss Pole’s remarks.  However, one thing was clear and\ncertain—it was necessary for Mrs Jamieson to have some change of scene;\nand Mr Mulliner was very impressive on this point, shaking his head\nwhenever we inquired after his mistress, and speaking of her loss of\nappetite and bad nights very ominously; and with justice too, for if she\nhad two characteristics in her natural state of health they were a\nfacility of eating and sleeping.  If she could neither eat nor sleep, she\nmust be indeed out of spirits and out of health.\n\nLady Glenmire (who had evidently taken very kindly to Cranford) did not\nlike the idea of Mrs Jamieson’s going to Cheltenham, and more than once\ninsinuated pretty plainly that it was Mr Mulliner’s doing, who had been\nmuch alarmed on the occasion of the house being attacked, and since had\nsaid, more than once, that he felt it a very responsible charge to have\nto defend so many women.  Be that as it might, Mrs Jamieson went to\nCheltenham, escorted by Mr Mulliner; and Lady Glenmire remained in\npossession of the house, her ostensible office being to take care that\nthe maid-servants did not pick up followers.  She made a very\npleasant-looking dragon; and, as soon as it was arranged for her stay in\nCranford, she found out that Mrs Jamieson’s visit to Cheltenham was just\nthe best thing in the world.  She had let her house in Edinburgh, and was\nfor the time house-less, so the charge of her sister-in-law’s comfortable\nabode was very convenient and acceptable.\n\nMiss Pole was very much inclined to instal herself as a heroine, because\nof the decided steps she had taken in flying from the two men and one\nwoman, whom she entitled “that murderous gang.”  She described their\nappearance in glowing colours, and I noticed that every time she went\nover the story some fresh trait of villainy was added to their\nappearance.  One was tall—he grew to be gigantic in height before we had\ndone with him; he of course had black hair—and by-and-by it hung in\nelf-locks over his forehead and down his back.  The other was short and\nbroad—and a hump sprouted out on his shoulder before we heard the last of\nhim; he had red hair—which deepened into carroty; and she was almost sure\nhe had a cast in the eye—a decided squint.  As for the woman, her eyes\nglared, and she was masculine-looking—a perfect virago; most probably a\nman dressed in woman’s clothes; afterwards, we heard of a beard on her\nchin, and a manly voice and a stride.\n\nIf Miss Pole was delighted to recount the events of that afternoon to all\ninquirers, others were not so proud of their adventures in the robbery\nline.  Mr Hoggins, the surgeon, had been attacked at his own door by two\nruffians, who were concealed in the shadow of the porch, and so\neffectually silenced him that he was robbed in the interval between\nringing his bell and the servant’s answering it.  Miss Pole was sure it\nwould turn out that this robbery had been committed by “her men,” and\nwent the very day she heard the report to have her teeth examined, and to\nquestion Mr Hoggins.  She came to us afterwards; so we heard what she had\nheard, straight and direct from the source, while we were yet in the\nexcitement and flutter of the agitation caused by the first intelligence;\nfor the event had only occurred the night before.\n\n“Well!” said Miss Pole, sitting down with the decision of a person who\nhas made up her mind as to the nature of life and the world (and such\npeople never tread lightly, or seat themselves without a bump), “well,\nMiss Matty! men will be men.  Every mother’s son of them wishes to be\nconsidered Samson and Solomon rolled into one—too strong ever to be\nbeaten or discomfited—too wise ever to be outwitted.  If you will notice,\nthey have always foreseen events, though they never tell one for one’s\nwarning before the events happen.  My father was a man, and I know the\nsex pretty well.”\n\nShe had talked herself out of breath, and we should have been very glad\nto fill up the necessary pause as chorus, but we did not exactly know\nwhat to say, or which man had suggested this diatribe against the sex; so\nwe only joined in generally, with a grave shake of the head, and a soft\nmurmur of “They are very incomprehensible, certainly!”\n\n“Now, only think,” said she.  “There, I have undergone the risk of having\none of my remaining teeth drawn (for one is terribly at the mercy of any\nsurgeon-dentist; and I, for one, always speak them fair till I have got\nmy mouth out of their clutches), and, after all, Mr Hoggins is too much\nof a man to own that he was robbed last night.”\n\n“Not robbed!” exclaimed the chorus.\n\n“Don’t tell me!” Miss Pole exclaimed, angry that we could be for a moment\nimposed upon.  “I believe he was robbed, just as Betty told me, and he is\nashamed to own it; and, to be sure, it was very silly of him to be robbed\njust at his own door; I daresay he feels that such a thing won’t raise\nhim in the eyes of Cranford society, and is anxious to conceal it—but he\nneed not have tried to impose upon me, by saying I must have heard an\nexaggerated account of some petty theft of a neck of mutton, which, it\nseems, was stolen out of the safe in his yard last week; he had the\nimpertinence to add, he believed that that was taken by the cat.  I have\nno doubt, if I could get at the bottom of it, it was that Irishman\ndressed up in woman’s clothes, who came spying about my house, with the\nstory about the starving children.”\n\nAfter we had duly condemned the want of candour which Mr Hoggins had\nevinced, and abused men in general, taking him for the representative and\ntype, we got round to the subject about which we had been talking when\nMiss Pole came in; namely, how far, in the present disturbed state of the\ncountry, we could venture to accept an invitation which Miss Matty had\njust received from Mrs Forrester, to come as usual and keep the\nanniversary of her wedding-day by drinking tea with her at five o’clock,\nand playing a quiet pool afterwards.  Mrs Forrester had said that she\nasked us with some diffidence, because the roads were, she feared, very\nunsafe.  But she suggested that perhaps one of us would not object to\ntake the sedan, and that the others, by walking briskly, might keep up\nwith the long trot of the chairmen, and so we might all arrive safely at\nOver Place, a suburb of the town.  (No; that is too large an expression:\na small cluster of houses separated from Cranford by about two hundred\nyards of a dark and lonely lane.)  There was no doubt but that a similar\nnote was awaiting Miss Pole at home; so her call was a very fortunate\naffair, as it enabled us to consult together.  We would all much rather\nhave declined this invitation; but we felt that it would not be quite\nkind to Mrs Forrester, who would otherwise be left to a solitary\nretrospect of her not very happy or fortunate life.  Miss Matty and Miss\nPole had been visitors on this occasion for many years, and now they\ngallantly determined to nail their colours to the mast, and to go through\nDarkness Lane rather than fail in loyalty to their friend.\n\nBut when the evening came, Miss Matty (for it was she who was voted into\nthe chair, as she had a cold), before being shut down in the sedan, like\njack-in-a-box, implored the chairmen, whatever might befall, not to run\naway and leave her fastened up there, to be murdered; and even after they\nhad promised, I saw her tighten her features into the stern determination\nof a martyr, and she gave me a melancholy and ominous shake of the head\nthrough the glass.  However, we got there safely, only rather out of\nbreath, for it was who could trot hardest through Darkness Lane, and I am\nafraid poor Miss Matty was sadly jolted.\n\nMrs Forrester had made extra preparations, in acknowledgment of our\nexertion in coming to see her through such dangers.  The usual forms of\ngenteel ignorance as to what her servants might send up were all gone\nthrough; and harmony and Preference seemed likely to be the order of the\nevening, but for an interesting conversation that began I don’t know how,\nbut which had relation, of course, to the robbers who infested the\nneighbourhood of Cranford.\n\nHaving braved the dangers of Darkness Lane, and thus having a little\nstock of reputation for courage to fall back upon; and also, I daresay,\ndesirous of proving ourselves superior to men (_videlicet_ Mr Hoggins) in\nthe article of candour, we began to relate our individual fears, and the\nprivate precautions we each of us took.  I owned that my pet apprehension\nwas eyes—eyes looking at me, and watching me, glittering out from some\ndull, flat, wooden surface; and that if I dared to go up to my\nlooking-glass when I was panic-stricken, I should certainly turn it\nround, with its back towards me, for fear of seeing eyes behind me\nlooking out of the darkness.  I saw Miss Matty nerving herself up for a\nconfession; and at last out it came.  She owned that, ever since she had\nbeen a girl, she had dreaded being caught by her last leg, just as she\nwas getting into bed, by some one concealed under it.  She said, when she\nwas younger and more active, she used to take a flying leap from a\ndistance, and so bring both her legs up safely into bed at once; but that\nthis had always annoyed Deborah, who piqued herself upon getting into bed\ngracefully, and she had given it up in consequence.  But now the old\nterror would often come over her, especially since Miss Pole’s house had\nbeen attacked (we had got quite to believe in the fact of the attack\nhaving taken place), and yet it was very unpleasant to think of looking\nunder a bed, and seeing a man concealed, with a great, fierce face\nstaring out at you; so she had bethought herself of something—perhaps I\nhad noticed that she had told Martha to buy her a penny ball, such as\nchildren play with—and now she rolled this ball under the bed every\nnight: if it came out on the other side, well and good; if not she always\ntook care to have her hand on the bell-rope, and meant to call out John\nand Harry, just as if she expected men-servants to answer her ring.\n\nWe all applauded this ingenious contrivance, and Miss Matty sank back\ninto satisfied silence, with a look at Mrs Forrester as if to ask for\n_her_ private weakness.\n\nMrs Forrester looked askance at Miss Pole, and tried to change the\nsubject a little by telling us that she had borrowed a boy from one of\nthe neighbouring cottages and promised his parents a hundredweight of\ncoals at Christmas, and his supper every evening, for the loan of him at\nnights.  She had instructed him in his possible duties when he first\ncame; and, finding him sensible, she had given him the Major’s sword (the\nMajor was her late husband), and desired him to put it very carefully\nbehind his pillow at night, turning the edge towards the head of the\npillow.  He was a sharp lad, she was sure; for, spying out the Major’s\ncocked hat, he had said, if he might have that to wear, he was sure he\ncould frighten two Englishmen, or four Frenchmen any day.  But she had\nimpressed upon him anew that he was to lose no time in putting on hats or\nanything else; but, if he heard any noise, he was to run at it with his\ndrawn sword.  On my suggesting that some accident might occur from such\nslaughterous and indiscriminate directions, and that he might rush on\nJenny getting up to wash, and have spitted her before he had discovered\nthat she was not a Frenchman, Mrs Forrester said she did not think that\nthat was likely, for he was a very sound sleeper, and generally had to be\nwell shaken or cold-pigged in a morning before they could rouse him.  She\nsometimes thought such dead sleep must be owing to the hearty suppers the\npoor lad ate, for he was half-starved at home, and she told Jenny to see\nthat he got a good meal at night.\n\nStill this was no confession of Mrs Forrester’s peculiar timidity, and we\nurged her to tell us what she thought would frighten her more than\nanything.  She paused, and stirred the fire, and snuffed the candles, and\nthen she said, in a sounding whisper—\n\n“Ghosts!”\n\nShe looked at Miss Pole, as much as to say, she had declared it, and\nwould stand by it.  Such a look was a challenge in itself.  Miss Pole\ncame down upon her with indigestion, spectral illusions, optical\ndelusions, and a great deal out of Dr Ferrier and Dr Hibbert besides.\nMiss Matty had rather a leaning to ghosts, as I have mentioned before,\nand what little she did say was all on Mrs Forrester’s side, who,\nemboldened by sympathy, protested that ghosts were a part of her\nreligion; that surely she, the widow of a major in the army, knew what to\nbe frightened at, and what not; in short, I never saw Mrs Forrester so\nwarm either before or since, for she was a gentle, meek, enduring old\nlady in most things.  Not all the elder-wine that ever was mulled could\nthis night wash out the remembrance of this difference between Miss Pole\nand her hostess.  Indeed, when the elder-wine was brought in, it gave\nrise to a new burst of discussion; for Jenny, the little maiden who\nstaggered under the tray, had to give evidence of having seen a ghost\nwith her own eyes, not so many nights ago, in Darkness Lane, the very\nlane we were to go through on our way home.\n\nIn spite of the uncomfortable feeling which this last consideration gave\nme, I could not help being amused at Jenny’s position, which was\nexceedingly like that of a witness being examined and cross-examined by\ntwo counsel who are not at all scrupulous about asking leading questions.\nThe conclusion I arrived at was, that Jenny had certainly seen something\nbeyond what a fit of indigestion would have caused.  A lady all in white,\nand without her head, was what she deposed and adhered to, supported by a\nconsciousness of the secret sympathy of her mistress under the withering\nscorn with which Miss Pole regarded her.  And not only she, but many\nothers, had seen this headless lady, who sat by the roadside wringing her\nhands as in deep grief.  Mrs Forrester looked at us from time to time\nwith an air of conscious triumph; but then she had not to pass through\nDarkness Lane before she could bury herself beneath her own familiar\nbed-clothes.\n\nWe preserved a discreet silence as to the headless lady while we were\nputting on our things to go home, for there was no knowing how near the\nghostly head and ears might be, or what spiritual connection they might\nbe keeping up with the unhappy body in Darkness Lane; and, therefore,\neven Miss Pole felt that it was as well not to speak lightly on such\nsubjects, for fear of vexing or insulting that woebegone trunk.  At\nleast, so I conjecture; for, instead of the busy clatter usual in the\noperation, we tied on our cloaks as sadly as mutes at a funeral.  Miss\nMatty drew the curtains round the windows of the chair to shut out\ndisagreeable sights, and the men (either because they were in spirits\nthat their labours were so nearly ended, or because they were going down\nhill), set off at such a round and merry pace, that it was all Miss Pole\nand I could do to keep up with them.  She had breath for nothing beyond\nan imploring “Don’t leave me!” uttered as she clutched my arm so tightly\nthat I could not have quitted her, ghost or no ghost.  What a relief it\nwas when the men, weary of their burden and their quick trot, stopped\njust where Headingley Causeway branches off from Darkness Lane!  Miss\nPole unloosed me and caught at one of the men—\n\n“Could not you—could not you take Miss Matty round by Headingley\nCauseway?—the pavement in Darkness Lane jolts so, and she is not very\nstrong.”\n\nA smothered voice was heard from the inside of the chair—\n\n“Oh! pray go on!  What is the matter?  What is the matter?  I will give\nyou sixpence more to go on very fast; pray don’t stop here.”\n\n“And I’ll give you a shilling,” said Miss Pole, with tremulous dignity,\n“if you’ll go by Headingley Causeway.”\n\nThe two men grunted acquiescence and took up the chair, and went along\nthe causeway, which certainly answered Miss Pole’s kind purpose of saving\nMiss Matty’s bones; for it was covered with soft, thick mud, and even a\nfall there would have been easy till the getting-up came, when there\nmight have been some difficulty in extrication.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI—SAMUEL BROWN\n\n\nTHE next morning I met Lady Glenmire and Miss Pole setting out on a long\nwalk to find some old woman who was famous in the neighbourhood for her\nskill in knitting woollen stockings.  Miss Pole said to me, with a smile\nhalf-kindly and half-contemptuous upon her countenance, “I have been just\ntelling Lady Glenmire of our poor friend Mrs Forrester, and her terror of\nghosts.  It comes from living so much alone, and listening to the\nbug-a-boo stories of that Jenny of hers.”  She was so calm and so much\nabove superstitious fears herself that I was almost ashamed to say how\nglad I had been of her Headingley Causeway proposition the night before,\nand turned off the conversation to something else.\n\nIn the afternoon Miss Pole called on Miss Matty to tell her of the\nadventure—the real adventure they had met with on their morning’s walk.\nThey had been perplexed about the exact path which they were to take\nacross the fields in order to find the knitting old woman, and had\nstopped to inquire at a little wayside public-house, standing on the high\nroad to London, about three miles from Cranford.  The good woman had\nasked them to sit down and rest themselves while she fetched her husband,\nwho could direct them better than she could; and, while they were sitting\nin the sanded parlour, a little girl came in.  They thought that she\nbelonged to the landlady, and began some trifling conversation with her;\nbut, on Mrs Roberts’s return, she told them that the little thing was the\nonly child of a couple who were staying in the house.  And then she began\na long story, out of which Lady Glenmire and Miss Pole could only gather\none or two decided facts, which were that, about six weeks ago, a light\nspring-cart had broken down just before their door, in which there were\ntwo men, one woman, and this child.  One of the men was seriously hurt—no\nbones broken, only “shaken,” the landlady called it; but he had probably\nsustained some severe internal injury, for he had languished in their\nhouse ever since, attended by his wife, the mother of this little girl.\nMiss Pole had asked what he was, what he looked like.  And Mrs Roberts\nhad made answer that he was not like a gentleman, nor yet like a common\nperson; if it had not been that he and his wife were such decent, quiet\npeople, she could almost have thought he was a mountebank, or something\nof that kind, for they had a great box in the cart, full of she did not\nknow what.  She had helped to unpack it, and take out their linen and\nclothes, when the other man—his twin-brother, she believed he was—had\ngone off with the horse and cart.\n\nMiss Pole had begun to have her suspicions at this point, and expressed\nher idea that it was rather strange that the box and cart and horse and\nall should have disappeared; but good Mrs Roberts seemed to have become\nquite indignant at Miss Pole’s implied suggestion; in fact, Miss Pole\nsaid she was as angry as if Miss Pole had told her that she herself was a\nswindler.  As the best way of convincing the ladies, she bethought her of\nbegging them to see the wife; and, as Miss Pole said, there was no\ndoubting the honest, worn, bronzed face of the woman, who at the first\ntender word from Lady Glenmire, burst into tears, which she was too weak\nto check until some word from the landlady made her swallow down her\nsobs, in order that she might testify to the Christian kindness shown by\nMr and Mrs Roberts.  Miss Pole came round with a swing to as vehement a\nbelief in the sorrowful tale as she had been sceptical before; and, as a\nproof of this, her energy in the poor sufferer’s behalf was nothing\ndaunted when she found out that he, and no other, was our Signor Brunoni,\nto whom all Cranford had been attributing all manner of evil this six\nweeks past!  Yes! his wife said his proper name was Samuel Brown—“Sam,”\nshe called him—but to the last we preferred calling him “the Signor”; it\nsounded so much better.\n\nThe end of their conversation with the Signora Brunoni was that it was\nagreed that he should be placed under medical advice, and for any expense\nincurred in procuring this Lady Glenmire promised to hold herself\nresponsible, and had accordingly gone to Mr Hoggins to beg him to ride\nover to the “Rising Sun” that very afternoon, and examine into the\nsignor’s real state; and, as Miss Pole said, if it was desirable to\nremove him to Cranford to be more immediately under Mr Hoggins’s eye, she\nwould undertake to see for lodgings and arrange about the rent.  Mrs\nRoberts had been as kind as could be all throughout, but it was evident\nthat their long residence there had been a slight inconvenience.\n\nBefore Miss Pole left us, Miss Matty and I were as full of the morning’s\nadventure as she was.  We talked about it all the evening, turning it in\nevery possible light, and we went to bed anxious for the morning, when we\nshould surely hear from someone what Mr Hoggins thought and recommended;\nfor, as Miss Matty observed, though Mr Hoggins did say “Jack’s up,” “a\nfig for his heels,” and called Preference “Pref.” she believed he was a\nvery worthy man and a very clever surgeon.  Indeed, we were rather proud\nof our doctor at Cranford, as a doctor.  We often wished, when we heard\nof Queen Adelaide or the Duke of Wellington being ill, that they would\nsend for Mr Hoggins; but, on consideration, we were rather glad they did\nnot, for, if we were ailing, what should we do if Mr Hoggins had been\nappointed physician-in-ordinary to the Royal Family?  As a surgeon we\nwere proud of him; but as a man—or rather, I should say, as a\ngentleman—we could only shake our heads over his name and himself, and\nwished that he had read Lord Chesterfield’s Letters in the days when his\nmanners were susceptible of improvement.  Nevertheless, we all regarded\nhis dictum in the signor’s case as infallible, and when he said that with\ncare and attention he might rally, we had no more fear for him.\n\nBut, although we had no more fear, everybody did as much as if there was\ngreat cause for anxiety—as indeed there was until Mr Hoggins took charge\nof him.  Miss Pole looked out clean and comfortable, if homely, lodgings;\nMiss Matty sent the sedan-chair for him, and Martha and I aired it well\nbefore it left Cranford by holding a warming-pan full of red-hot coals in\nit, and then shutting it up close, smoke and all, until the time when he\nshould get into it at the “Rising Sun.”  Lady Glenmire undertook the\nmedical department under Mr Hoggins’s directions, and rummaged up all Mrs\nJamieson’s medicine glasses, and spoons, and bed-tables, in a\nfree-and-easy way, that made Miss Matty feel a little anxious as to what\nthat lady and Mr Mulliner might say, if they knew.  Mrs Forrester made\nsome of the bread-jelly, for which she was so famous, to have ready as a\nrefreshment in the lodgings when he should arrive.  A present of this\nbread-jelly was the highest mark of favour dear Mrs Forrester could\nconfer.  Miss Pole had once asked her for the receipt, but she had met\nwith a very decided rebuff; that lady told her that she could not part\nwith it to any one during her life, and that after her death it was\nbequeathed, as her executors would find, to Miss Matty.  What Miss Matty,\nor, as Mrs Forrester called her (remembering the clause in her will and\nthe dignity of the occasion), Miss Matilda Jenkyns—might choose to do\nwith the receipt when it came into her possession—whether to make it\npublic, or to hand it down as an heirloom—she did not know, nor would she\ndictate.  And a mould of this admirable, digestible, unique bread-jelly\nwas sent by Mrs Forrester to our poor sick conjuror.  Who says that the\naristocracy are proud?  Here was a lady by birth a Tyrrell, and descended\nfrom the great Sir Walter that shot King Rufus, and in whose veins ran\nthe blood of him who murdered the little princes in the Tower, going\nevery day to see what dainty dishes she could prepare for Samuel Brown, a\nmountebank!  But, indeed, it was wonderful to see what kind feelings were\ncalled out by this poor man’s coming amongst us.  And also wonderful to\nsee how the great Cranford panic, which had been occasioned by his first\ncoming in his Turkish dress, melted away into thin air on his second\ncoming—pale and feeble, and with his heavy, filmy eyes, that only\nbrightened a very little when they fell upon the countenance of his\nfaithful wife, or their pale and sorrowful little girl.\n\nSomehow we all forgot to be afraid.  I daresay it was that finding out\nthat he, who had first excited our love of the marvellous by his\nunprecedented arts, had not sufficient every-day gifts to manage a shying\nhorse, made us feel as if we were ourselves again.  Miss Pole came with\nher little basket at all hours of the evening, as if her lonely house and\nthe unfrequented road to it had never been infested by that “murderous\ngang”; Mrs Forrester said she thought that neither Jenny nor she need\nmind the headless lady who wept and wailed in Darkness Lane, for surely\nthe power was never given to such beings to harm those who went about to\ntry to do what little good was in their power, to which Jenny tremblingly\nassented; but the mistress’s theory had little effect on the maid’s\npractice until she had sewn two pieces of red flannel in the shape of a\ncross on her inner garment.\n\nI found Miss Matty covering her penny ball—the ball that she used to roll\nunder her bed—with gay-coloured worsted in rainbow stripes.\n\n“My dear,” said she, “my heart is sad for that little careworn child.\nAlthough her father is a conjuror, she looks as if she had never had a\ngood game of play in her life.  I used to make very pretty balls in this\nway when I was a girl, and I thought I would try if I could not make this\none smart and take it to Phoebe this afternoon.  I think ‘the gang’ must\nhave left the neighbourhood, for one does not hear any more of their\nviolence and robbery now.”\n\nWe were all of us far too full of the signor’s precarious state to talk\neither about robbers or ghosts.  Indeed, Lady Glenmire said she never had\nheard of any actual robberies, except that two little boys had stolen\nsome apples from Farmer Benson’s orchard, and that some eggs had been\nmissed on a market-day off Widow Hayward’s stall.  But that was expecting\ntoo much of us; we could not acknowledge that we had only had this small\nfoundation for all our panic.  Miss Pole drew herself up at this remark\nof Lady Glenmire’s, and said “that she wished she could agree with her as\nto the very small reason we had had for alarm, but with the recollection\nof a man disguised as a woman who had endeavoured to force himself into\nher house while his confederates waited outside; with the knowledge\ngained from Lady Glenmire herself, of the footprints seen on Mrs\nJamieson’s flower borders; with the fact before her of the audacious\nrobbery committed on Mr Hoggins at his own door”—But here Lady Glenmire\nbroke in with a very strong expression of doubt as to whether this last\nstory was not an entire fabrication founded upon the theft of a cat; she\ngrew so red while she was saying all this that I was not surprised at\nMiss Pole’s manner of bridling up, and I am certain, if Lady Glenmire had\nnot been “her ladyship,” we should have had a more emphatic contradiction\nthan the “Well, to be sure!” and similar fragmentary ejaculations, which\nwere all that she ventured upon in my lady’s presence.  But when she was\ngone Miss Pole began a long congratulation to Miss Matty that so far they\nhad escaped marriage, which she noticed always made people credulous to\nthe last degree; indeed, she thought it argued great natural credulity in\na woman if she could not keep herself from being married; and in what\nLady Glenmire had said about Mr Hoggins’s robbery we had a specimen of\nwhat people came to if they gave way to such a weakness; evidently Lady\nGlenmire would swallow anything if she could believe the poor vamped-up\nstory about a neck of mutton and a pussy with which he had tried to\nimpose on Miss Pole, only she had always been on her guard against\nbelieving too much of what men said.\n\nWe were thankful, as Miss Pole desired us to be, that we had never been\nmarried; but I think, of the two, we were even more thankful that the\nrobbers had left Cranford; at least I judge so from a speech of Miss\nMatty’s that evening, as we sat over the fire, in which she evidently\nlooked upon a husband as a great protector against thieves, burglars, and\nghosts; and said that she did not think that she should dare to be always\nwarning young people against matrimony, as Miss Pole did continually; to\nbe sure, marriage was a risk, as she saw, now she had had some\nexperience; but she remembered the time when she had looked forward to\nbeing married as much as any one.\n\n“Not to any particular person, my dear,” said she, hastily checking\nherself up, as if she were afraid of having admitted too much; “only the\nold story, you know, of ladies always saying, ‘_When_ I marry,’ and\ngentlemen, ‘_If_ I marry.’”  It was a joke spoken in rather a sad tone,\nand I doubt if either of us smiled; but I could not see Miss Matty’s face\nby the flickering fire-light.  In a little while she continued—\n\n“But, after all, I have not told you the truth.  It is so long ago, and\nno one ever knew how much I thought of it at the time, unless, indeed, my\ndear mother guessed; but I may say that there was a time when I did not\nthink I should have been only Miss Matty Jenkyns all my life; for even if\nI did meet with any one who wished to marry me now (and, as Miss Pole\nsays, one is never too safe), I could not take him—I hope he would not\ntake it too much to heart, but I could _not_ take him—or any one but the\nperson I once thought I should be married to; and he is dead and gone,\nand he never knew how it all came about that I said ‘No,’ when I had\nthought many and many a time—Well, it’s no matter what I thought.  God\nordains it all, and I am very happy, my dear.  No one has such kind\nfriends as I,” continued she, taking my hand and holding it in hers.\n\nIf I had never known of Mr Holbrook, I could have said something in this\npause, but as I had, I could not think of anything that would come in\nnaturally, and so we both kept silence for a little time.\n\n“My father once made us,” she began, “keep a diary, in two columns; on\none side we were to put down in the morning what we thought would be the\ncourse and events of the coming day, and at night we were to put down on\nthe other side what really had happened.  It would be to some people\nrather a sad way of telling their lives,” (a tear dropped upon my hand at\nthese words)—“I don’t mean that mine has been sad, only so very different\nto what I expected.  I remember, one winter’s evening, sitting over our\nbedroom fire with Deborah—I remember it as if it were yesterday—and we\nwere planning our future lives, both of us were planning, though only she\ntalked about it.  She said she should like to marry an archdeacon, and\nwrite his charges; and you know, my dear, she never was married, and, for\naught I know, she never spoke to an unmarried archdeacon in her life.  I\nnever was ambitious, nor could I have written charges, but I thought I\ncould manage a house (my mother used to call me her right hand), and I\nwas always so fond of little children—the shyest babies would stretch out\ntheir little arms to come to me; when I was a girl, I was half my leisure\ntime nursing in the neighbouring cottages; but I don’t know how it was,\nwhen I grew sad and grave—which I did a year or two after this time—the\nlittle things drew back from me, and I am afraid I lost the knack, though\nI am just as fond of children as ever, and have a strange yearning at my\nheart whenever I see a mother with her baby in her arms.  Nay, my dear”\n(and by a sudden blaze which sprang up from a fall of the unstirred\ncoals, I saw that her eyes were full of tears—gazing intently on some\nvision of what might have been), “do you know I dream sometimes that I\nhave a little child—always the same—a little girl of about two years old;\nshe never grows older, though I have dreamt about her for many years.  I\ndon’t think I ever dream of any words or sound she makes; she is very\nnoiseless and still, but she comes to me when she is very sorry or very\nglad, and I have wakened with the clasp of her dear little arms round my\nneck.  Only last night—perhaps because I had gone to sleep thinking of\nthis ball for Phoebe—my little darling came in my dream, and put up her\nmouth to be kissed, just as I have seen real babies do to real mothers\nbefore going to bed.  But all this is nonsense, dear! only don’t be\nfrightened by Miss Pole from being married.  I can fancy it may be a very\nhappy state, and a little credulity helps one on through life very\nsmoothly—better than always doubting and doubting and seeing difficulties\nand disagreeables in everything.”\n\nIf I had been inclined to be daunted from matrimony, it would not have\nbeen Miss Pole to do it; it would have been the lot of poor Signor\nBrunoni and his wife.  And yet again, it was an encouragement to see how,\nthrough all their cares and sorrows, they thought of each other and not\nof themselves; and how keen were their joys, if they only passed through\neach other, or through the little Phoebe.\n\nThe signora told me, one day, a good deal about their lives up to this\nperiod.  It began by my asking her whether Miss Pole’s story of the\ntwin-brothers were true; it sounded so wonderful a likeness, that I\nshould have had my doubts, if Miss Pole had not been unmarried.  But the\nsignora, or (as we found out she preferred to be called) Mrs Brown, said\nit was quite true; that her brother-in-law was by many taken for her\nhusband, which was of great assistance to them in their profession;\n“though,” she continued, “how people can mistake Thomas for the real\nSignor Brunoni, I can’t conceive; but he says they do; so I suppose I\nmust believe him.  Not but what he is a very good man; I am sure I don’t\nknow how we should have paid our bill at the ‘Rising Sun’ but for the\nmoney he sends; but people must know very little about art if they can\ntake him for my husband.  Why, Miss, in the ball trick, where my husband\nspreads his fingers wide, and throws out his little finger with quite an\nair and a grace, Thomas just clumps up his hand like a fist, and might\nhave ever so many balls hidden in it.  Besides, he has never been in\nIndia, and knows nothing of the proper sit of a turban.”\n\n“Have you been in India?” said I, rather astonished.\n\n“Oh, yes! many a year, ma’am.  Sam was a sergeant in the 31st; and when\nthe regiment was ordered to India, I drew a lot to go, and I was more\nthankful than I can tell; for it seemed as if it would only be a slow\ndeath to me to part from my husband.  But, indeed, ma’am, if I had known\nall, I don’t know whether I would not rather have died there and then\nthan gone through what I have done since.  To be sure, I’ve been able to\ncomfort Sam, and to be with him; but, ma’am, I’ve lost six children,”\nsaid she, looking up at me with those strange eyes that I’ve never\nnoticed but in mothers of dead children—with a kind of wild look in them,\nas if seeking for what they never more might find.  “Yes!  Six children\ndied off, like little buds nipped untimely, in that cruel India.  I\nthought, as each died, I never could—I never would—love a child again;\nand when the next came, it had not only its own love, but the deeper love\nthat came from the thoughts of its little dead brothers and sisters.  And\nwhen Phoebe was coming, I said to my husband, ‘Sam, when the child is\nborn, and I am strong, I shall leave you; it will cut my heart cruel; but\nif this baby dies too, I shall go mad; the madness is in me now; but if\nyou let me go down to Calcutta, carrying my baby step by step, it will,\nmaybe, work itself off; and I will save, and I will hoard, and I will\nbeg—and I will die, to get a passage home to England, where our baby may\nlive?’  God bless him! he said I might go; and he saved up his pay, and I\nsaved every pice I could get for washing or any way; and when Phoebe\ncame, and I grew strong again, I set off.  It was very lonely; through\nthe thick forests, dark again with their heavy trees—along by the river’s\nside (but I had been brought up near the Avon in Warwickshire, so that\nflowing noise sounded like home)—from station to station, from Indian\nvillage to village, I went along, carrying my child.  I had seen one of\nthe officer’s ladies with a little picture, ma’am—done by a Catholic\nforeigner, ma’am—of the Virgin and the little Saviour, ma’am.  She had\nhim on her arm, and her form was softly curled round him, and their\ncheeks touched.  Well, when I went to bid good-bye to this lady, for whom\nI had washed, she cried sadly; for she, too, had lost her children, but\nshe had not another to save, like me; and I was bold enough to ask her\nwould she give me that print.  And she cried the more, and said her\nchildren were with that little blessed Jesus; and gave it me, and told me\nthat she had heard it had been painted on the bottom of a cask, which\nmade it have that round shape.  And when my body was very weary, and my\nheart was sick (for there were times when I misdoubted if I could ever\nreach my home, and there were times when I thought of my husband, and one\ntime when I thought my baby was dying), I took out that picture and\nlooked at it, till I could have thought the mother spoke to me, and\ncomforted me.  And the natives were very kind.  We could not understand\none another; but they saw my baby on my breast, and they came out to me,\nand brought me rice and milk, and sometimes flowers—I have got some of\nthe flowers dried.  Then, the next morning, I was so tired; and they\nwanted me to stay with them—I could tell that—and tried to frighten me\nfrom going into the deep woods, which, indeed, looked very strange and\ndark; but it seemed to me as if Death was following me to take my baby\naway from me; and as if I must go on, and on—and I thought how God had\ncared for mothers ever since the world was made, and would care for me;\nso I bade them good-bye, and set off afresh.  And once when my baby was\nill, and both she and I needed rest, He led me to a place where I found a\nkind Englishman lived, right in the midst of the natives.”\n\n“And you reached Calcutta safely at last?”\n\n“Yes, safely!  Oh! when I knew I had only two days’ journey more before\nme, I could not help it, ma’am—it might be idolatry, I cannot tell—but I\nwas near one of the native temples, and I went into it with my baby to\nthank God for His great mercy; for it seemed to me that where others had\nprayed before to their God, in their joy or in their agony, was of itself\na sacred place.  And I got as servant to an invalid lady, who grew quite\nfond of my baby aboard-ship; and, in two years’ time, Sam earned his\ndischarge, and came home to me, and to our child.  Then he had to fix on\na trade; but he knew of none; and once, once upon a time, he had learnt\nsome tricks from an Indian juggler; so he set up conjuring, and it\nanswered so well that he took Thomas to help him—as his man, you know,\nnot as another conjuror, though Thomas has set it up now on his own hook.\nBut it has been a great help to us that likeness between the twins, and\nmade a good many tricks go off well that they made up together.  And\nThomas is a good brother, only he has not the fine carriage of my\nhusband, so that I can’t think how he can be taken for Signor Brunoni\nhimself, as he says he is.”\n\n“Poor little Phoebe!” said I, my thoughts going back to the baby she\ncarried all those hundred miles.\n\n“Ah! you may say so!  I never thought I should have reared her, though,\nwhen she fell ill at Chunderabaddad; but that good, kind Aga Jenkyns took\nus in, which I believe was the very saving of her.”\n\n“Jenkyns!” said I.\n\n“Yes, Jenkyns.  I shall think all people of that name are kind; for here\nis that nice old lady who comes every day to take Phoebe a walk!”\n\nBut an idea had flashed through my head; could the Aga Jenkyns be the\nlost Peter?  True he was reported by many to be dead.  But, equally true,\nsome had said that he had arrived at the dignity of Great Lama of Thibet.\nMiss Matty thought he was alive.  I would make further inquiry.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII—ENGAGED TO BE MARRIED\n\n\nWAS the “poor Peter” of Cranford the Aga Jenkyns of Chunderabaddad, or\nwas he not?  As somebody says, that was the question.\n\nIn my own home, whenever people had nothing else to do, they blamed me\nfor want of discretion.  Indiscretion was my bug-bear fault.  Everybody\nhas a bug-bear fault, a sort of standing characteristic—a _pièce de\nrésistance_ for their friends to cut at; and in general they cut and come\nagain.  I was tired of being called indiscreet and incautious; and I\ndetermined for once to prove myself a model of prudence and wisdom.  I\nwould not even hint my suspicions respecting the Aga.  I would collect\nevidence and carry it home to lay before my father, as the family friend\nof the two Miss Jenkynses.\n\nIn my search after facts, I was often reminded of a description my father\nhad once given of a ladies’ committee that he had had to preside over.\nHe said he could not help thinking of a passage in Dickens, which spoke\nof a chorus in which every man took the tune he knew best, and sang it to\nhis own satisfaction.  So, at this charitable committee, every lady took\nthe subject uppermost in her mind, and talked about it to her own great\ncontentment, but not much to the advancement of the subject they had met\nto discuss.  But even that committee could have been nothing to the\nCranford ladies when I attempted to gain some clear and definite\ninformation as to poor Peter’s height, appearance, and when and where he\nwas seen and heard of last.  For instance, I remember asking Miss Pole\n(and I thought the question was very opportune, for I put it when I met\nher at a call at Mrs Forrester’s, and both the ladies had known Peter,\nand I imagined that they might refresh each other’s memories)—I asked\nMiss Pole what was the very last thing they had ever heard about him; and\nthen she named the absurd report to which I have alluded, about his\nhaving been elected Great Lama of Thibet; and this was a signal for each\nlady to go off on her separate idea.  Mrs Forrester’s start was made on\nthe veiled prophet in Lalla Rookh—whether I thought he was meant for the\nGreat Lama, though Peter was not so ugly, indeed rather handsome, if he\nhad not been freckled.  I was thankful to see her double upon Peter; but,\nin a moment, the delusive lady was off upon Rowland’s Kalydor, and the\nmerits of cosmetics and hair oils in general, and holding forth so\nfluently that I turned to listen to Miss Pole, who (through the llamas,\nthe beasts of burden) had got to Peruvian bonds, and the share market,\nand her poor opinion of joint-stock banks in general, and of that one in\nparticular in which Miss Matty’s money was invested.  In vain I put in\n“When was it—in what year was it that you heard that Mr Peter was the\nGreat Lama?”  They only joined issue to dispute whether llamas were\ncarnivorous animals or not; in which dispute they were not quite on fair\ngrounds, as Mrs Forrester (after they had grown warm and cool again)\nacknowledged that she always confused carnivorous and graminivorous\ntogether, just as she did horizontal and perpendicular; but then she\napologised for it very prettily, by saying that in her day the only use\npeople made of four-syllabled words was to teach how they should be\nspelt.\n\nThe only fact I gained from this conversation was that certainly Peter\nhad last been heard of in India, “or that neighbourhood”; and that this\nscanty intelligence of his whereabouts had reached Cranford in the year\nwhen Miss Pole had brought her Indian muslin gown, long since worn out\n(we washed it and mended it, and traced its decline and fall into a\nwindow-blind before we could go on); and in a year when Wombwell came to\nCranford, because Miss Matty had wanted to see an elephant in order that\nshe might the better imagine Peter riding on one; and had seen a\nboa-constrictor too, which was more than she wished to imagine in her\nfancy-pictures of Peter’s locality; and in a year when Miss Jenkyns had\nlearnt some piece of poetry off by heart, and used to say, at all the\nCranford parties, how Peter was “surveying mankind from China to Peru,”\nwhich everybody had thought very grand, and rather appropriate, because\nIndia was between China and Peru, if you took care to turn the globe to\nthe left instead of the right.\n\nI suppose all these inquiries of mine, and the consequent curiosity\nexcited in the minds of my friends, made us blind and deaf to what was\ngoing on around us.  It seemed to me as if the sun rose and shone, and as\nif the rain rained on Cranford, just as usual, and I did not notice any\nsign of the times that could be considered as a prognostic of any\nuncommon event; and, to the best of my belief, not only Miss Matty and\nMrs Forrester, but even Miss Pole herself, whom we looked upon as a kind\nof prophetess, from the knack she had of foreseeing things before they\ncame to pass—although she did not like to disturb her friends by telling\nthem her foreknowledge—even Miss Pole herself was breathless with\nastonishment when she came to tell us of the astounding piece of news.\nBut I must recover myself; the contemplation of it, even at this distance\nof time, has taken away my breath and my grammar, and unless I subdue my\nemotion, my spelling will go too.\n\nWe were sitting—Miss Matty and I—much as usual, she in the blue chintz\neasy-chair, with her back to the light, and her knitting in her hand, I\nreading aloud the _St James’s Chronicle_.  A few minutes more, and we\nshould have gone to make the little alterations in dress usual before\ncalling-time (twelve o’clock) in Cranford.  I remember the scene and the\ndate well.  We had been talking of the signor’s rapid recovery since the\nwarmer weather had set in, and praising Mr Hoggins’s skill, and lamenting\nhis want of refinement and manner (it seems a curious coincidence that\nthis should have been our subject, but so it was), when a knock was\nheard—a caller’s knock—three distinct taps—and we were flying (that is to\nsay, Miss Matty could not walk very fast, having had a touch of\nrheumatism) to our rooms, to change cap and collars, when Miss Pole\narrested us by calling out, as she came up the stairs, “Don’t go—I can’t\nwait—it is not twelve, I know—but never mind your dress—I must speak to\nyou.”  We did our best to look as if it was not we who had made the\nhurried movement, the sound of which she had heard; for, of course, we\ndid not like to have it supposed that we had any old clothes that it was\nconvenient to wear out in the “sanctuary of home,” as Miss Jenkyns once\nprettily called the back parlour, where she was tying up preserves.  So\nwe threw our gentility with double force into our manners, and very\ngenteel we were for two minutes while Miss Pole recovered breath, and\nexcited our curiosity strongly by lifting up her hands in amazement, and\nbringing them down in silence, as if what she had to say was too big for\nwords, and could only be expressed by pantomime.\n\n“What do you think, Miss Matty?  What _do_ you think?  Lady Glenmire is\nto marry—is to be married, I mean—Lady Glenmire—Mr Hoggins—Mr Hoggins is\ngoing to marry Lady Glenmire!”\n\n“Marry!” said we.  “Marry!  Madness!”\n\n“Marry!” said Miss Pole, with the decision that belonged to her\ncharacter.  “_I_ said marry! as you do; and I also said, ‘What a fool my\nlady is going to make of herself!’  I could have said ‘Madness!’ but I\ncontrolled myself, for it was in a public shop that I heard of it.  Where\nfeminine delicacy is gone to, I don’t know!  You and I, Miss Matty, would\nhave been ashamed to have known that our marriage was spoken of in a\ngrocer’s shop, in the hearing of shopmen!”\n\n“But,” said Miss Matty, sighing as one recovering from a blow, “perhaps\nit is not true.  Perhaps we are doing her injustice.”\n\n“No,” said Miss Pole.  “I have taken care to ascertain that.  I went\nstraight to Mrs Fitz-Adam, to borrow a cookery-book which I knew she had;\nand I introduced my congratulations _à propos_ of the difficulty\ngentlemen must have in house-keeping; and Mrs Fitz-Adam bridled up, and\nsaid that she believed it was true, though how and where I could have\nheard it she did not know.  She said her brother and Lady Glenmire had\ncome to an understanding at last.  ‘Understanding!’ such a coarse word!\nBut my lady will have to come down to many a want of refinement.  I have\nreason to believe Mr Hoggins sups on bread-and-cheese and beer every\nnight.\n\n“Marry!” said Miss Matty once again.  “Well!  I never thought of it.  Two\npeople that we know going to be married.  It’s coming very near!”\n\n“So near that my heart stopped beating when I heard of it, while you\nmight have counted twelve,” said Miss Pole.\n\n“One does not know whose turn may come next.  Here, in Cranford, poor\nLady Glenmire might have thought herself safe,” said Miss Matty, with a\ngentle pity in her tones.\n\n“Bah!” said Miss Pole, with a toss of her head.  “Don’t you remember poor\ndear Captain Brown’s song ‘Tibbie Fowler,’ and the line—\n\n    ‘Set her on the Tintock tap,\n    The wind will blaw a man till her.’”\n\n“That was because ‘Tibbie Fowler’ was rich, I think.”\n\n“Well! there was a kind of attraction about Lady Glenmire that I, for\none, should be ashamed to have.”\n\nI put in my wonder.  “But how can she have fancied Mr Hoggins?  I am not\nsurprised that Mr Hoggins has liked her.”\n\n“Oh!  I don’t know.  Mr Hoggins is rich, and very pleasant-looking,” said\nMiss Matty, “and very good-tempered and kind-hearted.”\n\n“She has married for an establishment, that’s it.  I suppose she takes\nthe surgery with it,” said Miss Pole, with a little dry laugh at her own\njoke.  But, like many people who think they have made a severe and\nsarcastic speech, which yet is clever of its kind, she began to relax in\nher grimness from the moment when she made this allusion to the surgery;\nand we turned to speculate on the way in which Mrs Jamieson would receive\nthe news.  The person whom she had left in charge of her house to keep\noff followers from her maids to set up a follower of her own!  And that\nfollower a man whom Mrs Jamieson had tabooed as vulgar, and inadmissible\nto Cranford society, not merely on account of his name, but because of\nhis voice, his complexion, his boots, smelling of the stable, and\nhimself, smelling of drugs.  Had he ever been to see Lady Glenmire at Mrs\nJamieson’s?  Chloride of lime would not purify the house in its owner’s\nestimation if he had.  Or had their interviews been confined to the\noccasional meetings in the chamber of the poor sick conjuror, to whom,\nwith all our sense of the _mésalliance_, we could not help allowing that\nthey had both been exceedingly kind?  And now it turned out that a\nservant of Mrs Jamieson’s had been ill, and Mr Hoggins had been attending\nher for some weeks.  So the wolf had got into the fold, and now he was\ncarrying off the shepherdess.  What would Mrs Jamieson say?  We looked\ninto the darkness of futurity as a child gazes after a rocket up in the\ncloudy sky, full of wondering expectation of the rattle, the discharge,\nand the brilliant shower of sparks and light.  Then we brought ourselves\ndown to earth and the present time by questioning each other (being all\nequally ignorant, and all equally without the slightest data to build any\nconclusions upon) as to when IT would take place?  Where?  How much a\nyear Mr Hoggins had?  Whether she would drop her title?  And how Martha\nand the other correct servants in Cranford would ever be brought to\nannounce a married couple as Lady Glenmire and Mr Hoggins?  But would\nthey be visited?  Would Mrs Jamieson let us?  Or must we choose between\nthe Honourable Mrs Jamieson and the degraded Lady Glenmire?  We all liked\nLady Glenmire the best.  She was bright, and kind, and sociable, and\nagreeable; and Mrs Jamieson was dull, and inert, and pompous, and\ntiresome.  But we had acknowledged the sway of the latter so long, that\nit seemed like a kind of disloyalty now even to meditate disobedience to\nthe prohibition we anticipated.\n\nMrs Forrester surprised us in our darned caps and patched collars; and we\nforgot all about them in our eagerness to see how she would bear the\ninformation, which we honourably left to Miss Pole, to impart, although,\nif we had been inclined to take unfair advantage, we might have rushed in\nourselves, for she had a most out-of-place fit of coughing for five\nminutes after Mrs Forrester entered the room.  I shall never forget the\nimploring expression of her eyes, as she looked at us over her\npocket-handkerchief.  They said, as plain as words could speak, “Don’t\nlet Nature deprive me of the treasure which is mine, although for a time\nI can make no use of it.”  And we did not.\n\nMrs Forrester’s surprise was equal to ours; and her sense of injury\nrather greater, because she had to feel for her Order, and saw more fully\nthan we could do how such conduct brought stains on the aristocracy.\n\nWhen she and Miss Pole left us we endeavoured to subside into calmness;\nbut Miss Matty was really upset by the intelligence she had heard.  She\nreckoned it up, and it was more than fifteen years since she had heard of\nany of her acquaintance going to be married, with the one exception of\nMiss Jessie Brown; and, as she said, it gave her quite a shock, and made\nher feel as if she could not think what would happen next.\n\nI don’t know whether it is a fancy of mine, or a real fact, but I have\nnoticed that, just after the announcement of an engagement in any set,\nthe unmarried ladies in that set flutter out in an unusual gaiety and\nnewness of dress, as much as to say, in a tacit and unconscious manner,\n“We also are spinsters.”  Miss Matty and Miss Pole talked and thought\nmore about bonnets, gowns, caps, and shawls, during the fortnight that\nsucceeded this call, than I had known them do for years before.  But it\nmight be the spring weather, for it was a warm and pleasant March; and\nmerinoes and beavers, and woollen materials of all sorts were but\nungracious receptacles of the bright sun’s glancing rays.  It had not\nbeen Lady Glenmire’s dress that had won Mr Hoggins’s heart, for she went\nabout on her errands of kindness more shabby than ever.  Although in the\nhurried glimpses I caught of her at church or elsewhere she appeared\nrather to shun meeting any of her friends, her face seemed to have almost\nsomething of the flush of youth in it; her lips looked redder and more\ntrembling full than in their old compressed state, and her eyes dwelt on\nall things with a lingering light, as if she was learning to love\nCranford and its belongings.  Mr Hoggins looked broad and radiant, and\ncreaked up the middle aisle at church in a brand-new pair of top-boots—an\naudible, as well as visible, sign of his purposed change of state; for\nthe tradition went, that the boots he had worn till now were the\nidentical pair in which he first set out on his rounds in Cranford\ntwenty-five years ago; only they had been new-pieced, high and low, top\nand bottom, heel and sole, black leather and brown leather, more times\nthan any one could tell.\n\nNone of the ladies in Cranford chose to sanction the marriage by\ncongratulating either of the parties.  We wished to ignore the whole\naffair until our liege lady, Mrs Jamieson, returned.  Till she came back\nto give us our cue, we felt that it would be better to consider the\nengagement in the same light as the Queen of Spain’s legs—facts which\ncertainly existed, but the less said about the better.  This restraint\nupon our tongues—for you see if we did not speak about it to any of the\nparties concerned, how could we get answers to the questions that we\nlonged to ask?—was beginning to be irksome, and our idea of the dignity\nof silence was paling before our curiosity, when another direction was\ngiven to our thoughts, by an announcement on the part of the principal\nshopkeeper of Cranford, who ranged the trades from grocer and\ncheesemonger to man-milliner, as occasion required, that the spring\nfashions were arrived, and would be exhibited on the following Tuesday at\nhis rooms in High Street.  Now Miss Matty had been only waiting for this\nbefore buying herself a new silk gown.  I had offered, it is true, to\nsend to Drumble for patterns, but she had rejected my proposal, gently\nimplying that she had not forgotten her disappointment about the\nsea-green turban.  I was thankful that I was on the spot now, to\ncounteract the dazzling fascination of any yellow or scarlet silk.\n\nI must say a word or two here about myself.  I have spoken of my father’s\nold friendship for the Jenkyns family; indeed, I am not sure if there was\nnot some distant relationship.  He had willingly allowed me to remain all\nthe winter at Cranford, in consideration of a letter which Miss Matty had\nwritten to him about the time of the panic, in which I suspect she had\nexaggerated my powers and my bravery as a defender of the house.  But now\nthat the days were longer and more cheerful, he was beginning to urge the\nnecessity of my return; and I only delayed in a sort of odd forlorn hope\nthat if I could obtain any clear information, I might make the account\ngiven by the signora of the Aga Jenkyns tally with that of “poor Peter,”\nhis appearance and disappearance, which I had winnowed out of the\nconversation of Miss Pole and Mrs Forrester.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII—STOPPED PAYMENT\n\n\nTHE very Tuesday morning on which Mr Johnson was going to show the\nfashions, the post-woman brought two letters to the house.  I say the\npost-woman, but I should say the postman’s wife.  He was a lame\nshoemaker, a very clean, honest man, much respected in the town; but he\nnever brought the letters round except on unusual occasions, such as\nChristmas Day or Good Friday; and on those days the letters, which should\nhave been delivered at eight in the morning, did not make their\nappearance until two or three in the afternoon, for every one liked poor\nThomas, and gave him a welcome on these festive occasions.  He used to\nsay, “He was welly stawed wi’ eating, for there were three or four houses\nwhere nowt would serve ’em but he must share in their breakfast;” and by\nthe time he had done his last breakfast, he came to some other friend who\nwas beginning dinner; but come what might in the way of temptation, Tom\nwas always sober, civil, and smiling; and, as Miss Jenkyns used to say,\nit was a lesson in patience, that she doubted not would call out that\nprecious quality in some minds, where, but for Thomas, it might have lain\ndormant and undiscovered.  Patience was certainly very dormant in Miss\nJenkyns’s mind.  She was always expecting letters, and always drumming on\nthe table till the post-woman had called or gone past.  On Christmas Day\nand Good Friday she drummed from breakfast till church, from church-time\ntill two o’clock—unless when the fire wanted stirring, when she\ninvariably knocked down the fire-irons, and scolded Miss Matty for it.\nBut equally certain was the hearty welcome and the good dinner for\nThomas; Miss Jenkyns standing over him like a bold dragoon, questioning\nhim as to his children—what they were doing—what school they went to;\nupbraiding him if another was likely to make its appearance, but sending\neven the little babies the shilling and the mince-pie which was her gift\nto all the children, with half-a-crown in addition for both father and\nmother.  The post was not half of so much consequence to dear Miss Matty;\nbut not for the world would she have diminished Thomas’s welcome and his\ndole, though I could see that she felt rather shy over the ceremony,\nwhich had been regarded by Miss Jenkyns as a glorious opportunity for\ngiving advice and benefiting her fellow-creatures.  Miss Matty would\nsteal the money all in a lump into his hand, as if she were ashamed of\nherself.  Miss Jenkyns gave him each individual coin separate, with a\n“There! that’s for yourself; that’s for Jenny,” etc.  Miss Matty would\neven beckon Martha out of the kitchen while he ate his food: and once, to\nmy knowledge, winked at its rapid disappearance into a blue cotton\npocket-handkerchief.  Miss Jenkyns almost scolded him if he did not leave\na clean plate, however heaped it might have been, and gave an injunction\nwith every mouthful.\n\nI have wandered a long way from the two letters that awaited us on the\nbreakfast-table that Tuesday morning.  Mine was from my father.  Miss\nMatty’s was printed.  My father’s was just a man’s letter; I mean it was\nvery dull, and gave no information beyond that he was well, that they had\nhad a good deal of rain, that trade was very stagnant, and there were\nmany disagreeable rumours afloat.  He then asked me if I knew whether\nMiss Matty still retained her shares in the Town and County Bank, as\nthere were very unpleasant reports about it; though nothing more than he\nhad always foreseen, and had prophesied to Miss Jenkyns years ago, when\nshe would invest their little property in it—the only unwise step that\nclever woman had ever taken, to his knowledge (the only time she ever\nacted against his advice, I knew).  However, if anything had gone wrong,\nof course I was not to think of leaving Miss Matty while I could be of\nany use, etc.\n\n“Who is your letter from, my dear?  Mine is a very civil invitation,\nsigned ‘Edwin Wilson,’ asking me to attend an important meeting of the\nshareholders of the Town and County Bank, to be held in Drumble, on\nThursday the twenty-first.  I am sure, it is very attentive of them to\nremember me.”\n\nI did not like to hear of this “important meeting,” for, though I did not\nknow much about business, I feared it confirmed what my father said:\nhowever, I thought, ill news always came fast enough, so I resolved to\nsay nothing about my alarm, and merely told her that my father was well,\nand sent his kind regards to her.  She kept turning over and admiring her\nletter.  At last she spoke—\n\n“I remember their sending one to Deborah just like this; but that I did\nnot wonder at, for everybody knew she was so clear-headed.  I am afraid I\ncould not help them much; indeed, if they came to accounts, I should be\nquite in the way, for I never could do sums in my head.  Deborah, I know,\nrather wished to go, and went so far as to order a new bonnet for the\noccasion: but when the time came she had a bad cold; so they sent her a\nvery polite account of what they had done.  Chosen a director, I think it\nwas.  Do you think they want me to help them to choose a director?  I am\nsure I should choose your father at once!’\n\n“My father has no shares in the bank,” said I.\n\n“Oh, no!  I remember.  He objected very much to Deborah’s buying any, I\nbelieve.  But she was quite the woman of business, and always judged for\nherself; and here, you see, they have paid eight per cent. all these\nyears.”\n\nIt was a very uncomfortable subject to me, with my half-knowledge; so I\nthought I would change the conversation, and I asked at what time she\nthought we had better go and see the fashions.  “Well, my dear,” she\nsaid, “the thing is this: it is not etiquette to go till after twelve;\nbut then, you see, all Cranford will be there, and one does not like to\nbe too curious about dress and trimmings and caps with all the world\nlooking on.  It is never genteel to be over-curious on these occasions.\nDeborah had the knack of always looking as if the latest fashion was\nnothing new to her; a manner she had caught from Lady Arley, who did see\nall the new modes in London, you know.  So I thought we would just slip\ndown—for I do want this morning, soon after breakfast half-a-pound of\ntea—and then we could go up and examine the things at our leisure, and\nsee exactly how my new silk gown must be made; and then, after twelve, we\ncould go with our minds disengaged, and free from thoughts of dress.”\n\nWe began to talk of Miss Matty’s new silk gown.  I discovered that it\nwould be really the first time in her life that she had had to choose\nanything of consequence for herself: for Miss Jenkyns had always been the\nmore decided character, whatever her taste might have been; and it is\nastonishing how such people carry the world before them by the mere force\nof will.  Miss Matty anticipated the sight of the glossy folds with as\nmuch delight as if the five sovereigns, set apart for the purchase, could\nbuy all the silks in the shop; and (remembering my own loss of two hours\nin a toyshop before I could tell on what wonder to spend a silver\nthreepence) I was very glad that we were going early, that dear Miss\nMatty might have leisure for the delights of perplexity.\n\nIf a happy sea-green could be met with, the gown was to be sea-green: if\nnot, she inclined to maize, and I to silver gray; and we discussed the\nrequisite number of breadths until we arrived at the shop-door.  We were\nto buy the tea, select the silk, and then clamber up the iron corkscrew\nstairs that led into what was once a loft, though now a fashion\nshow-room.\n\nThe young men at Mr Johnson’s had on their best looks; and their best\ncravats, and pivoted themselves over the counter with surprising\nactivity.  They wanted to show us upstairs at once; but on the principle\nof business first and pleasure afterwards, we stayed to purchase the tea.\nHere Miss Matty’s absence of mind betrayed itself.  If she was made aware\nthat she had been drinking green tea at any time, she always thought it\nher duty to lie awake half through the night afterward (I have known her\ntake it in ignorance many a time without such effects), and consequently\ngreen tea was prohibited the house; yet to-day she herself asked for the\nobnoxious article, under the impression that she was talking about the\nsilk.  However, the mistake was soon rectified; and then the silks were\nunrolled in good truth.  By this time the shop was pretty well filled,\nfor it was Cranford market-day, and many of the farmers and country\npeople from the neighbourhood round came in, sleeking down their hair,\nand glancing shyly about, from under their eyelids, as anxious to take\nback some notion of the unusual gaiety to the mistress or the lasses at\nhome, and yet feeling that they were out of place among the smart shopmen\nand gay shawls and summer prints.  One honest-looking man, however, made\nhis way up to the counter at which we stood, and boldly asked to look at\na shawl or two.  The other country folk confined themselves to the\ngrocery side; but our neighbour was evidently too full of some kind\nintention towards mistress, wife or daughter, to be shy; and it soon\nbecame a question with me, whether he or Miss Matty would keep their\nshopmen the longest time.  He thought each shawl more beautiful than the\nlast; and, as for Miss Matty, she smiled and sighed over each fresh bale\nthat was brought out; one colour set off another, and the heap together\nwould, as she said, make even the rainbow look poor.\n\n“I am afraid,” said she, hesitating, “Whichever I choose I shall wish I\nhad taken another.  Look at this lovely crimson! it would be so warm in\nwinter.  But spring is coming on, you know.  I wish I could have a gown\nfor every season,” said she, dropping her voice—as we all did in Cranford\nwhenever we talked of anything we wished for but could not afford.\n“However,” she continued in a louder and more cheerful tone, “it would\ngive me a great deal of trouble to take care of them if I had them; so, I\nthink, I’ll only take one.  But which must it be, my dear?”\n\nAnd now she hovered over a lilac with yellow spots, while I pulled out a\nquiet sage-green that had faded into insignificance under the more\nbrilliant colours, but which was nevertheless a good silk in its humble\nway.  Our attention was called off to our neighbour.  He had chosen a\nshawl of about thirty shillings’ value; and his face looked broadly\nhappy, under the anticipation, no doubt, of the pleasant surprise he\nwould give to some Molly or Jenny at home; he had tugged a leathern purse\nout of his breeches-pocket, and had offered a five-pound note in payment\nfor the shawl, and for some parcels which had been brought round to him\nfrom the grocery counter; and it was just at this point that he attracted\nour notice.  The shopman was examining the note with a puzzled, doubtful\nair.\n\n“Town and County Bank!  I am not sure, sir, but I believe we have\nreceived a warning against notes issued by this bank only this morning.\nI will just step and ask Mr Johnson, sir; but I’m afraid I must trouble\nyou for payment in cash, or in a note of a different bank.”\n\nI never saw a man’s countenance fall so suddenly into dismay and\nbewilderment.  It was almost piteous to see the rapid change.\n\n“Dang it!” said he, striking his fist down on the table, as if to try\nwhich was the harder, “the chap talks as if notes and gold were to be had\nfor the picking up.”\n\nMiss Matty had forgotten her silk gown in her interest for the man.  I\ndon’t think she had caught the name of the bank, and in my nervous\ncowardice I was anxious that she should not; and so I began admiring the\nyellow-spotted lilac gown that I had been utterly condemning only a\nminute before.  But it was of no use.\n\n“What bank was it?  I mean, what bank did your note belong to?”\n\n“Town and County Bank.”\n\n“Let me see it,” said she quietly to the shopman, gently taking it out of\nhis hand, as he brought it back to return it to the farmer.\n\nMr Johnson was very sorry, but, from information he had received, the\nnotes issued by that bank were little better than waste paper.\n\n“I don’t understand it,” said Miss Matty to me in a low voice.  “That is\nour bank, is it not?—the Town and County Bank?”\n\n“Yes,” said I.  “This lilac silk will just match the ribbons in your new\ncap, I believe,” I continued, holding up the folds so as to catch the\nlight, and wishing that the man would make haste and be gone, and yet\nhaving a new wonder, that had only just sprung up, how far it was wise or\nright in me to allow Miss Matty to make this expensive purchase, if the\naffairs of the bank were really so bad as the refusal of the note\nimplied.\n\nBut Miss Matty put on the soft dignified manner, peculiar to her, rarely\nused, and yet which became her so well, and laying her hand gently on\nmine, she said—\n\n“Never mind the silks for a few minutes, dear.  I don’t understand you,\nsir,” turning now to the shopman, who had been attending to the farmer.\n“Is this a forged note?”\n\n“Oh, no, ma’am.  It is a true note of its kind; but you see, ma’am, it is\na joint-stock bank, and there are reports out that it is likely to break.\nMr Johnson is only doing his duty, ma’am, as I am sure Mr Dobson knows.”\n\nBut Mr Dobson could not respond to the appealing bow by any answering\nsmile.  He was turning the note absently over in his fingers, looking\ngloomily enough at the parcel containing the lately-chosen shawl.\n\n“It’s hard upon a poor man,” said he, “as earns every farthing with the\nsweat of his brow.  However, there’s no help for it.  You must take back\nyour shawl, my man; Lizzle must go on with her cloak for a while.  And\nyon figs for the little ones—I promised them to ’em—I’ll take them; but\nthe ’bacco, and the other things”—\n\n“I will give you five sovereigns for your note, my good man,” said Miss\nMatty.  “I think there is some great mistake about it, for I am one of\nthe shareholders, and I’m sure they would have told me if things had not\nbeen going on right.”\n\nThe shopman whispered a word or two across the table to Miss Matty.  She\nlooked at him with a dubious air.\n\n“Perhaps so,” said she.  “But I don’t pretend to understand business; I\nonly know that if it is going to fail, and if honest people are to lose\ntheir money because they have taken our notes—I can’t explain myself,”\nsaid she, suddenly becoming aware that she had got into a long sentence\nwith four people for audience; “only I would rather exchange my gold for\nthe note, if you please,” turning to the farmer, “and then you can take\nyour wife the shawl.  It is only going without my gown a few days\nlonger,” she continued, speaking to me.  “Then, I have no doubt,\neverything will be cleared up.”\n\n“But if it is cleared up the wrong way?” said I.\n\n“Why, then it will only have been common honesty in me, as a shareholder,\nto have given this good man the money.  I am quite clear about it in my\nown mind; but, you know, I can never speak quite as comprehensibly as\nothers can, only you must give me your note, Mr Dobson, if you please,\nand go on with your purchases with these sovereigns.”\n\nThe man looked at her with silent gratitude—too awkward to put his thanks\ninto words; but he hung back for a minute or two, fumbling with his note.\n\n“I’m loth to make another one lose instead of me, if it is a loss; but,\nyou see, five pounds is a deal of money to a man with a family; and, as\nyou say, ten to one in a day or two the note will be as good as gold\nagain.”\n\n“No hope of that, my friend,” said the shopman.\n\n“The more reason why I should take it,” said Miss Matty quietly.  She\npushed her sovereigns towards the man, who slowly laid his note down in\nexchange.  “Thank you.  I will wait a day or two before I purchase any of\nthese silks; perhaps you will then have a greater choice.  My dear, will\nyou come upstairs?”\n\nWe inspected the fashions with as minute and curious an interest as if\nthe gown to be made after them had been bought.  I could not see that the\nlittle event in the shop below had in the least damped Miss Matty’s\ncuriosity as to the make of sleeves or the sit of skirts.  She once or\ntwice exchanged congratulations with me on our private and leisurely view\nof the bonnets and shawls; but I was, all the time, not so sure that our\nexamination was so utterly private, for I caught glimpses of a figure\ndodging behind the cloaks and mantles; and, by a dexterous move, I came\nface to face with Miss Pole, also in morning costume (the principal\nfeature of which was her being without teeth, and wearing a veil to\nconceal the deficiency), come on the same errand as ourselves.  But she\nquickly took her departure, because, as she said, she had a bad headache,\nand did not feel herself up to conversation.\n\nAs we came down through the shop, the civil Mr Johnson was awaiting us;\nhe had been informed of the exchange of the note for gold, and with much\ngood feeling and real kindness, but with a little want of tact, he wished\nto condole with Miss Matty, and impress upon her the true state of the\ncase.  I could only hope that he had heard an exaggerated rumour for he\nsaid that her shares were worse than nothing, and that the bank could not\npay a shilling in the pound.  I was glad that Miss Matty seemed still a\nlittle incredulous; but I could not tell how much of this was real or\nassumed, with that self-control which seemed habitual to ladies of Miss\nMatty’s standing in Cranford, who would have thought their dignity\ncompromised by the slightest expression of surprise, dismay, or any\nsimilar feeling to an inferior in station, or in a public shop.  However,\nwe walked home very silently.  I am ashamed to say, I believe I was\nrather vexed and annoyed at Miss Matty’s conduct in taking the note to\nherself so decidedly.  I had so set my heart upon her having a new silk\ngown, which she wanted sadly; in general she was so undecided anybody\nmight turn her round; in this case I had felt that it was no use\nattempting it, but I was not the less put out at the result.\n\nSomehow, after twelve o’clock, we both acknowledged to a sated curiosity\nabout the fashions, and to a certain fatigue of body (which was, in fact,\ndepression of mind) that indisposed us to go out again.  But still we\nnever spoke of the note; till, all at once, something possessed me to ask\nMiss Matty if she would think it her duty to offer sovereigns for all the\nnotes of the Town and County Bank she met with?  I could have bitten my\ntongue out the minute I had said it.  She looked up rather sadly, and as\nif I had thrown a new perplexity into her already distressed mind; and\nfor a minute or two she did not speak.  Then she said—my own dear Miss\nMatty—without a shade of reproach in her voice—\n\n“My dear, I never feel as if my mind was what people call very strong;\nand it’s often hard enough work for me to settle what I ought to do with\nthe case right before me.  I was very thankful to—I was very thankful,\nthat I saw my duty this morning, with the poor man standing by me; but\nits rather a strain upon me to keep thinking and thinking what I should\ndo if such and such a thing happened; and, I believe, I had rather wait\nand see what really does come; and I don’t doubt I shall be helped then\nif I don’t fidget myself, and get too anxious beforehand.  You know,\nlove, I’m not like Deborah.  If Deborah had lived, I’ve no doubt she\nwould have seen after them, before they had got themselves into this\nstate.”\n\nWe had neither of us much appetite for dinner, though we tried to talk\ncheerfully about indifferent things.  When we returned into the\ndrawing-room, Miss Matty unlocked her desk and began to look over her\naccount-books.  I was so penitent for what I had said in the morning,\nthat I did not choose to take upon myself the presumption to suppose that\nI could assist her; I rather left her alone, as, with puzzled brow, her\neye followed her pen up and down the ruled page.  By-and-by she shut the\nbook, locked the desk, and came and drew a chair to mine, where I sat in\nmoody sorrow over the fire.  I stole my hand into hers; she clasped it,\nbut did not speak a word.  At last she said, with forced composure in her\nvoice, “If that bank goes wrong, I shall lose one hundred and forty-nine\npounds thirteen shillings and fourpence a year; I shall only have\nthirteen pounds a year left.”  I squeezed her hand hard and tight.  I did\nnot know what to say.  Presently (it was too dark to see her face) I felt\nher fingers work convulsively in my grasp; and I knew she was going to\nspeak again.  I heard the sobs in her voice as she said, “I hope it’s not\nwrong—not wicked—but, oh!  I am so glad poor Deborah is spared this.  She\ncould not have borne to come down in the world—she had such a noble,\nlofty spirit.”\n\nThis was all she said about the sister who had insisted upon investing\ntheir little property in that unlucky bank.  We were later in lighting\nthe candle than usual that night, and until that light shamed us into\nspeaking, we sat together very silently and sadly.\n\nHowever, we took to our work after tea with a kind of forced cheerfulness\n(which soon became real as far as it went), talking of that never-ending\nwonder, Lady Glenmire’s engagement.  Miss Matty was almost coming round\nto think it a good thing.\n\n“I don’t mean to deny that men are troublesome in a house.  I don’t judge\nfrom my own experience, for my father was neatness itself, and wiped his\nshoes on coming in as carefully as any woman; but still a man has a sort\nof knowledge of what should be done in difficulties, that it is very\npleasant to have one at hand ready to lean upon.  Now, Lady Glenmire,\ninstead of being tossed about, and wondering where she is to settle, will\nbe certain of a home among pleasant and kind people, such as our good\nMiss Pole and Mrs Forrester.  And Mr Hoggins is really a very personable\nman; and as for his manners, why, if they are not very polished, I have\nknown people with very good hearts and very clever minds too, who were\nnot what some people reckoned refined, but who were both true and\ntender.”\n\nShe fell off into a soft reverie about Mr Holbrook, and I did not\ninterrupt her, I was so busy maturing a plan I had had in my mind for\nsome days, but which this threatened failure of the bank had brought to a\ncrisis.  That night, after Miss Matty went to bed, I treacherously\nlighted the candle again, and sat down in the drawing-room to compose a\nletter to the Aga Jenkyns, a letter which should affect him if he were\nPeter, and yet seem a mere statement of dry facts if he were a stranger.\nThe church clock pealed out two before I had done.\n\nThe next morning news came, both official and otherwise, that the Town\nand County Bank had stopped payment.  Miss Matty was ruined.\n\nShe tried to speak quietly to me; but when she came to the actual fact\nthat she would have but about five shillings a week to live upon, she\ncould not restrain a few tears.\n\n“I am not crying for myself, dear,” said she, wiping them away; “I\nbelieve I am crying for the very silly thought of how my mother would\ngrieve if she could know; she always cared for us so much more than for\nherself.  But many a poor person has less, and I am not very extravagant,\nand, thank God, when the neck of mutton, and Martha’s wages, and the rent\nare paid, I have not a farthing owing.  Poor Martha!  I think she’ll be\nsorry to leave me.”\n\nMiss Matty smiled at me through her tears, and she would fain have had me\nsee only the smile, not the tears.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV—FRIENDS IN NEED\n\n\nIT was an example to me, and I fancy it might be to many others, to see\nhow immediately Miss Matty set about the retrenchment which she knew to\nbe right under her altered circumstances.  While she went down to speak\nto Martha, and break the intelligence to her, I stole out with my letter\nto the Aga Jenkyns, and went to the signor’s lodgings to obtain the exact\naddress.  I bound the signora to secrecy; and indeed her military manners\nhad a degree of shortness and reserve in them which made her always say\nas little as possible, except when under the pressure of strong\nexcitement.  Moreover (which made my secret doubly sure), the signor was\nnow so far recovered as to be looking forward to travelling and conjuring\nagain in the space of a few days, when he, his wife, and little Phoebe\nwould leave Cranford.  Indeed, I found him looking over a great black and\nred placard, in which the Signor Brunoni’s accomplishments were set\nforth, and to which only the name of the town where he would next display\nthem was wanting.  He and his wife were so much absorbed in deciding\nwhere the red letters would come in with most effect (it might have been\nthe Rubric for that matter), that it was some time before I could get my\nquestion asked privately, and not before I had given several decisions,\nthe which I questioned afterwards with equal wisdom of sincerity as soon\nas the signor threw in his doubts and reasons on the important subject.\nAt last I got the address, spelt by sound, and very queer it looked.  I\ndropped it in the post on my way home, and then for a minute I stood\nlooking at the wooden pane with a gaping slit which divided me from the\nletter but a moment ago in my hand.  It was gone from me like life, never\nto be recalled.  It would get tossed about on the sea, and stained with\nsea-waves perhaps, and be carried among palm-trees, and scented with all\ntropical fragrance; the little piece of paper, but an hour ago so\nfamiliar and commonplace, had set out on its race to the strange wild\ncountries beyond the Ganges!  But I could not afford to lose much time on\nthis speculation.  I hastened home, that Miss Matty might not miss me.\nMartha opened the door to me, her face swollen with crying.  As soon as\nshe saw me she burst out afresh, and taking hold of my arm she pulled me\nin, and banged the door to, in order to ask me if indeed it was all true\nthat Miss Matty had been saying.\n\n“I’ll never leave her!  No; I won’t.  I telled her so, and said I could\nnot think how she could find in her heart to give me warning.  I could\nnot have had the face to do it, if I’d been her.  I might ha’ been just\nas good for nothing as Mrs Fitz-Adam’s Rosy, who struck for wages after\nliving seven years and a half in one place.  I said I was not one to go\nand serve Mammon at that rate; that I knew when I’d got a good missus, if\nshe didn’t know when she’d got a good servant”—\n\n“But, Martha,” said I, cutting in while she wiped her eyes.\n\n“Don’t, ‘but Martha’ me,” she replied to my deprecatory tone.\n\n“Listen to reason”—\n\n“I’ll not listen to reason,” she said, now in full possession of her\nvoice, which had been rather choked with sobbing.  “Reason always means\nwhat someone else has got to say.  Now I think what I’ve got to say is\ngood enough reason; but reason or not, I’ll say it, and I’ll stick to it.\nI’ve money in the Savings Bank, and I’ve a good stock of clothes, and I’m\nnot going to leave Miss Matty.  No, not if she gives me warning every\nhour in the day!”\n\nShe put her arms akimbo, as much as to say she defied me; and, indeed, I\ncould hardly tell how to begin to remonstrate with her, so much did I\nfeel that Miss Matty, in her increasing infirmity, needed the attendance\nof this kind and faithful woman.\n\n“Well”—said I at last.\n\n“I’m thankful you begin with ‘well!’  If you’d have begun with ‘but,’ as\nyou did afore, I’d not ha’ listened to you.  Now you may go on.”\n\n“I know you would be a great loss to Miss Matty, Martha”—\n\n“I telled her so.  A loss she’d never cease to be sorry for,” broke in\nMartha triumphantly.\n\n“Still, she will have so little—so very little—to live upon, that I don’t\nsee just now how she could find you food—she will even be pressed for her\nown.  I tell you this, Martha, because I feel you are like a friend to\ndear Miss Matty, but you know she might not like to have it spoken\nabout.”\n\nApparently this was even a blacker view of the subject than Miss Matty\nhad presented to her, for Martha just sat down on the first chair that\ncame to hand, and cried out loud (we had been standing in the kitchen).\n\nAt last she put her apron down, and looking me earnestly in the face,\nasked, “Was that the reason Miss Matty wouldn’t order a pudding to-day?\nShe said she had no great fancy for sweet things, and you and she would\njust have a mutton chop.  But I’ll be up to her.  Never you tell, but\nI’ll make her a pudding, and a pudding she’ll like, too, and I’ll pay for\nit myself; so mind you see she eats it.  Many a one has been comforted in\ntheir sorrow by seeing a good dish come upon the table.”\n\nI was rather glad that Martha’s energy had taken the immediate and\npractical direction of pudding-making, for it staved off the quarrelsome\ndiscussion as to whether she should or should not leave Miss Matty’s\nservice.  She began to tie on a clean apron, and otherwise prepare\nherself for going to the shop for the butter, eggs, and what else she\nmight require.  She would not use a scrap of the articles already in the\nhouse for her cookery, but went to an old tea-pot in which her private\nstore of money was deposited, and took out what she wanted.\n\nI found Miss Matty very quiet, and not a little sad; but by-and-by she\ntried to smile for my sake.  It was settled that I was to write to my\nfather, and ask him to come over and hold a consultation, and as soon as\nthis letter was despatched we began to talk over future plans.  Miss\nMatty’s idea was to take a single room, and retain as much of her\nfurniture as would be necessary to fit up this, and sell the rest, and\nthere to quietly exist upon what would remain after paying the rent.  For\nmy part, I was more ambitious and less contented.  I thought of all the\nthings by which a woman, past middle age, and with the education common\nto ladies fifty years ago, could earn or add to a living without\nmaterially losing caste; but at length I put even this last clause on one\nside, and wondered what in the world Miss Matty could do.\n\nTeaching was, of course, the first thing that suggested itself.  If Miss\nMatty could teach children anything, it would throw her among the little\nelves in whom her soul delighted.  I ran over her accomplishments.  Once\nupon a time I had heard her say she could play “Ah! vous dirai-je,\nmaman?” on the piano, but that was long, long ago; that faint shadow of\nmusical acquirement had died out years before.  She had also once been\nable to trace out patterns very nicely for muslin embroidery, by dint of\nplacing a piece of silver paper over the design to be copied, and holding\nboth against the window-pane while she marked the scollop and\neyelet-holes.  But that was her nearest approach to the accomplishment of\ndrawing, and I did not think it would go very far.  Then again, as to the\nbranches of a solid English education—fancy work and the use of the\nglobes—such as the mistress of the Ladies’ Seminary, to which all the\ntradespeople in Cranford sent their daughters, professed to teach.  Miss\nMatty’s eyes were failing her, and I doubted if she could discover the\nnumber of threads in a worsted-work pattern, or rightly appreciate the\ndifferent shades required for Queen Adelaide’s face in the loyal\nwool-work now fashionable in Cranford.  As for the use of the globes, I\nhad never been able to find it out myself, so perhaps I was not a good\njudge of Miss Matty’s capability of instructing in this branch of\neducation; but it struck me that equators and tropics, and such mystical\ncircles, were very imaginary lines indeed to her, and that she looked\nupon the signs of the Zodiac as so many remnants of the Black Art.\n\nWhat she piqued herself upon, as arts in which she excelled, was making\ncandle-lighters, or “spills” (as she preferred calling them), of coloured\npaper, cut so as to resemble feathers, and knitting garters in a variety\nof dainty stitches.  I had once said, on receiving a present of an\nelaborate pair, that I should feel quite tempted to drop one of them in\nthe street, in order to have it admired; but I found this little joke\n(and it was a very little one) was such a distress to her sense of\npropriety, and was taken with such anxious, earnest alarm, lest the\ntemptation might some day prove too strong for me, that I quite regretted\nhaving ventured upon it.  A present of these delicately-wrought garters,\na bunch of gay “spills,” or a set of cards on which sewing-silk was wound\nin a mystical manner, were the well-known tokens of Miss Matty’s favour.\nBut would any one pay to have their children taught these arts? or,\nindeed, would Miss Matty sell, for filthy lucre, the knack and the skill\nwith which she made trifles of value to those who loved her?\n\nI had to come down to reading, writing, and arithmetic; and, in reading\nthe chapter every morning, she always coughed before coming to long\nwords.  I doubted her power of getting through a genealogical chapter,\nwith any number of coughs.  Writing she did well and delicately—but\nspelling!  She seemed to think that the more out-of-the-way this was, and\nthe more trouble it cost her, the greater the compliment she paid to her\ncorrespondent; and words that she would spell quite correctly in her\nletters to me became perfect enigmas when she wrote to my father.\n\nNo! there was nothing she could teach to the rising generation of\nCranford, unless they had been quick learners and ready imitators of her\npatience, her humility, her sweetness, her quiet contentment with all\nthat she could not do.  I pondered and pondered until dinner was\nannounced by Martha, with a face all blubbered and swollen with crying.\n\nMiss Matty had a few little peculiarities which Martha was apt to regard\nas whims below her attention, and appeared to consider as childish\nfancies of which an old lady of fifty-eight should try and cure herself.\nBut to-day everything was attended to with the most careful regard.  The\nbread was cut to the imaginary pattern of excellence that existed in Miss\nMatty’s mind, as being the way which her mother had preferred, the\ncurtain was drawn so as to exclude the dead brick wall of a neighbour’s\nstable, and yet left so as to show every tender leaf of the poplar which\nwas bursting into spring beauty.  Martha’s tone to Miss Matty was just\nsuch as that good, rough-spoken servant usually kept sacred for little\nchildren, and which I had never heard her use to any grown-up person.\n\nI had forgotten to tell Miss Matty about the pudding, and I was afraid\nshe might not do justice to it, for she had evidently very little\nappetite this day; so I seized the opportunity of letting her into the\nsecret while Martha took away the meat.  Miss Matty’s eyes filled with\ntears, and she could not speak, either to express surprise or delight,\nwhen Martha returned bearing it aloft, made in the most wonderful\nrepresentation of a lion _couchant_ that ever was moulded.  Martha’s face\ngleamed with triumph as she set it down before Miss Matty with an\nexultant “There!”  Miss Matty wanted to speak her thanks, but could not;\nso she took Martha’s hand and shook it warmly, which set Martha off\ncrying, and I myself could hardly keep up the necessary composure.\nMartha burst out of the room, and Miss Matty had to clear her voice once\nor twice before she could speak.  At last she said, “I should like to\nkeep this pudding under a glass shade, my dear!” and the notion of the\nlion _couchant_, with his currant eyes, being hoisted up to the place of\nhonour on a mantelpiece, tickled my hysterical fancy, and I began to\nlaugh, which rather surprised Miss Matty.\n\n“I am sure, dear, I have seen uglier things under a glass shade before\nnow,” said she.\n\nSo had I, many a time and oft, and I accordingly composed my countenance\n(and now I could hardly keep from crying), and we both fell to upon the\npudding, which was indeed excellent—only every morsel seemed to choke us,\nour hearts were so full.\n\nWe had too much to think about to talk much that afternoon.  It passed\nover very tranquilly.  But when the tea-urn was brought in a new thought\ncame into my head.  Why should not Miss Matty sell tea—be an agent to the\nEast India Tea Company which then existed?  I could see no objections to\nthis plan, while the advantages were many—always supposing that Miss\nMatty could get over the degradation of condescending to anything like\ntrade.  Tea was neither greasy nor sticky—grease and stickiness being two\nof the qualities which Miss Matty could not endure.  No shop-window would\nbe required.  A small, genteel notification of her being licensed to sell\ntea would, it is true, be necessary, but I hoped that it could be placed\nwhere no one would see it.  Neither was tea a heavy article, so as to tax\nMiss Matty’s fragile strength.  The only thing against my plan was the\nbuying and selling involved.\n\nWhile I was giving but absent answers to the questions Miss Matty was\nputting—almost as absently—we heard a clumping sound on the stairs, and a\nwhispering outside the door, which indeed once opened and shut as if by\nsome invisible agency.  After a little while Martha came in, dragging\nafter her a great tall young man, all crimson with shyness, and finding\nhis only relief in perpetually sleeking down his hair.\n\n“Please, ma’am, he’s only Jem Hearn,” said Martha, by way of an\nintroduction; and so out of breath was she that I imagine she had had\nsome bodily struggle before she could overcome his reluctance to be\npresented on the courtly scene of Miss Matilda Jenkyns’s drawing-room.\n\n“And please, ma’am, he wants to marry me off-hand.  And please, ma’am, we\nwant to take a lodger—just one quiet lodger, to make our two ends meet;\nand we’d take any house conformable; and, oh dear Miss Matty, if I may be\nso bold, would you have any objections to lodging with us?  Jem wants it\nas much as I do.”  [To Jem ]—“You great oaf! why can’t you back me!—But\nhe does want it all the same, very bad—don’t you, Jem?—only, you see,\nhe’s dazed at being called on to speak before quality.”\n\n“It’s not that,” broke in Jem.  “It’s that you’ve taken me all on a\nsudden, and I didn’t think for to get married so soon—and such quick\nwords does flabbergast a man.  It’s not that I’m against it, ma’am”\n(addressing Miss Matty), “only Martha has such quick ways with her when\nonce she takes a thing into her head; and marriage, ma’am—marriage nails\na man, as one may say.  I dare say I shan’t mind it after it’s once\nover.”\n\n“Please, ma’am,” said Martha—who had plucked at his sleeve, and nudged\nhim with her elbow, and otherwise tried to interrupt him all the time he\nhad been speaking—“don’t mind him, he’ll come to; ’twas only last night\nhe was an-axing me, and an-axing me, and all the more because I said I\ncould not think of it for years to come, and now he’s only taken aback\nwith the suddenness of the joy; but you know, Jem, you are just as full\nas me about wanting a lodger.”  (Another great nudge.)\n\n“Ay! if Miss Matty would lodge with us—otherwise I’ve no mind to be\ncumbered with strange folk in the house,” said Jem, with a want of tact\nwhich I could see enraged Martha, who was trying to represent a lodger as\nthe great object they wished to obtain, and that, in fact, Miss Matty\nwould be smoothing their path and conferring a favour, if she would only\ncome and live with them.\n\nMiss Matty herself was bewildered by the pair; their, or rather Martha’s\nsudden resolution in favour of matrimony staggered her, and stood between\nher and the contemplation of the plan which Martha had at heart.  Miss\nMatty began—\n\n“Marriage is a very solemn thing, Martha.”\n\n“It is indeed, ma’am,” quoth Jem.  “Not that I’ve no objections to\nMartha.”\n\n“You’ve never let me a-be for asking me for to fix when I would be\nmarried,” said Martha—her face all a-fire, and ready to cry with\nvexation—“and now you’re shaming me before my missus and all.”\n\n“Nay, now!  Martha don’t ee! don’t ee! only a man likes to have\nbreathing-time,” said Jem, trying to possess himself of her hand, but in\nvain.  Then seeing that she was more seriously hurt than he had imagined,\nhe seemed to try to rally his scattered faculties, and with more\nstraightforward dignity than, ten minutes before, I should have thought\nit possible for him to assume, he turned to Miss Matty, and said, “I\nhope, ma’am, you know that I am bound to respect every one who has been\nkind to Martha.  I always looked on her as to be my wife—some time; and\nshe has often and often spoken of you as the kindest lady that ever was;\nand though the plain truth is, I would not like to be troubled with\nlodgers of the common run, yet if, ma’am, you’d honour us by living with\nus, I’m sure Martha would do her best to make you comfortable; and I’d\nkeep out of your way as much as I could, which I reckon would be the best\nkindness such an awkward chap as me could do.”\n\nMiss Matty had been very busy with taking off her spectacles, wiping\nthem, and replacing them; but all she could say was, “Don’t let any\nthought of me hurry you into marriage: pray don’t.  Marriage is such a\nvery solemn thing!”\n\n“But Miss Matilda will think of your plan, Martha,” said I, struck with\nthe advantages that it offered, and unwilling to lose the opportunity of\nconsidering about it.  “And I’m sure neither she nor I can ever forget\nyour kindness; nor your’s either, Jem.”\n\n“Why, yes, ma’am!  I’m sure I mean kindly, though I’m a bit fluttered by\nbeing pushed straight ahead into matrimony, as it were, and mayn’t\nexpress myself conformable.  But I’m sure I’m willing enough, and give me\ntime to get accustomed; so, Martha, wench, what’s the use of crying so,\nand slapping me if I come near?”\n\nThis last was _sotto voce_, and had the effect of making Martha bounce\nout of the room, to be followed and soothed by her lover.  Whereupon Miss\nMatty sat down and cried very heartily, and accounted for it by saying\nthat the thought of Martha being married so soon gave her quite a shock,\nand that she should never forgive herself if she thought she was hurrying\nthe poor creature.  I think my pity was more for Jem, of the two; but\nboth Miss Matty and I appreciated to the full the kindness of the honest\ncouple, although we said little about this, and a good deal about the\nchances and dangers of matrimony.\n\nThe next morning, very early, I received a note from Miss Pole, so\nmysteriously wrapped up, and with so many seals on it to secure secrecy,\nthat I had to tear the paper before I could unfold it.  And when I came\nto the writing I could hardly understand the meaning, it was so involved\nand oracular.  I made out, however, that I was to go to Miss Pole’s at\neleven o’clock; the number _eleven_ being written in full length as well\nas in numerals, and _A.M._ twice dashed under, as if I were very likely\nto come at eleven at night, when all Cranford was usually a-bed and\nasleep by ten.  There was no signature except Miss Pole’s initials\nreversed, P.E.; but as Martha had given me the note, “with Miss Pole’s\nkind regards,” it needed no wizard to find out who sent it; and if the\nwriter’s name was to be kept secret, it was very well that I was alone\nwhen Martha delivered it.\n\nI went as requested to Miss Pole’s.  The door was opened to me by her\nlittle maid Lizzy in Sunday trim, as if some grand event was impending\nover this work-day.  And the drawing-room upstairs was arranged in\naccordance with this idea.  The table was set out with the best green\ncard-cloth, and writing materials upon it.  On the little chiffonier was\na tray with a newly-decanted bottle of cowslip wine, and some\nladies’-finger biscuits.  Miss Pole herself was in solemn array, as if to\nreceive visitors, although it was only eleven o’clock.  Mrs Forrester was\nthere, crying quietly and sadly, and my arrival seemed only to call forth\nfresh tears.  Before we had finished our greetings, performed with\nlugubrious mystery of demeanour, there was another rat-tat-tat, and Mrs\nFitz-Adam appeared, crimson with walking and excitement.  It seemed as if\nthis was all the company expected; for now Miss Pole made several\ndemonstrations of being about to open the business of the meeting, by\nstirring the fire, opening and shutting the door, and coughing and\nblowing her nose.  Then she arranged us all round the table, taking care\nto place me opposite to her; and last of all, she inquired of me if the\nsad report was true, as she feared it was, that Miss Matty had lost all\nher fortune?\n\nOf course, I had but one answer to make; and I never saw more unaffected\nsorrow depicted on any countenances than I did there on the three before\nme.\n\n“I wish Mrs Jamieson was here!” said Mrs Forrester at last; but to judge\nfrom Mrs Fitz-Adam’s face, she could not second the wish.\n\n“But without Mrs Jamieson,” said Miss Pole, with just a sound of offended\nmerit in her voice, “we, the ladies of Cranford, in my drawing-room\nassembled, can resolve upon something.  I imagine we are none of us what\nmay be called rich, though we all possess a genteel competency,\nsufficient for tastes that are elegant and refined, and would not, if\nthey could, be vulgarly ostentatious.”  (Here I observed Miss Pole refer\nto a small card concealed in her hand, on which I imagine she had put\ndown a few notes.)\n\n“Miss Smith,” she continued, addressing me (familiarly known as “Mary” to\nall the company assembled, but this was a state occasion), “I have\nconversed in private—I made it my business to do so yesterday\nafternoon—with these ladies on the misfortune which has happened to our\nfriend, and one and all of us have agreed that while we have a\nsuperfluity, it is not only a duty, but a pleasure—a true pleasure,\nMary!”—her voice was rather choked just here, and she had to wipe her\nspectacles before she could go on—“to give what we can to assist her—Miss\nMatilda Jenkyns.  Only in consideration of the feelings of delicate\nindependence existing in the mind of every refined female”—I was sure she\nhad got back to the card now—“we wish to contribute our mites in a secret\nand concealed manner, so as not to hurt the feelings I have referred to.\nAnd our object in requesting you to meet us this morning is that,\nbelieving you are the daughter—that your father is, in fact, her\nconfidential adviser, in all pecuniary matters, we imagined that, by\nconsulting with him, you might devise some mode in which our contribution\ncould be made to appear the legal due which Miss Matilda Jenkyns ought to\nreceive from—  Probably your father, knowing her investments, can fill up\nthe blank.”\n\nMiss Pole concluded her address, and looked round for approval and\nagreement.\n\n“I have expressed your meaning, ladies, have I not?  And while Miss Smith\nconsiders what reply to make, allow me to offer you some little\nrefreshment.”\n\nI had no great reply to make: I had more thankfulness at my heart for\ntheir kind thoughts than I cared to put into words; and so I only mumbled\nout something to the effect “that I would name what Miss Pole had said to\nmy father, and that if anything could be arranged for dear Miss\nMatty,”—and here I broke down utterly, and had to be refreshed with a\nglass of cowslip wine before I could check the crying which had been\nrepressed for the last two or three days.  The worst was, all the ladies\ncried in concert.  Even Miss Pole cried, who had said a hundred times\nthat to betray emotion before any one was a sign of weakness and want of\nself-control.  She recovered herself into a slight degree of impatient\nanger, directed against me, as having set them all off; and, moreover, I\nthink she was vexed that I could not make a speech back in return for\nhers; and if I had known beforehand what was to be said, and had a card\non which to express the probable feelings that would rise in my heart, I\nwould have tried to gratify her.  As it was, Mrs Forrester was the person\nto speak when we had recovered our composure.\n\n“I don’t mind, among friends, stating that I—no!  I’m not poor exactly,\nbut I don’t think I’m what you may call rich; I wish I were, for dear\nMiss Matty’s sake—but, if you please, I’ll write down in a sealed paper\nwhat I can give.  I only wish it was more; my dear Mary, I do indeed.”\n\nNow I saw why paper, pens, and ink were provided.  Every lady wrote down\nthe sum she could give annually, signed the paper, and sealed it\nmysteriously.  If their proposal was acceded to, my father was to be\nallowed to open the papers, under pledge of secrecy.  If not, they were\nto be returned to their writers.\n\nWhen the ceremony had been gone through, I rose to depart; but each lady\nseemed to wish to have a private conference with me.  Miss Pole kept me\nin the drawing-room to explain why, in Mrs Jamieson’s absence, she had\ntaken the lead in this “movement,” as she was pleased to call it, and\nalso to inform me that she had heard from good sources that Mrs Jamieson\nwas coming home directly in a state of high displeasure against her\nsister-in-law, who was forthwith to leave her house, and was, she\nbelieved, to return to Edinburgh that very afternoon.  Of course this\npiece of intelligence could not be communicated before Mrs Fitz-Adam,\nmore especially as Miss Pole was inclined to think that Lady Glenmire’s\nengagement to Mr Hoggins could not possibly hold against the blaze of Mrs\nJamieson’s displeasure.  A few hearty inquiries after Miss Matty’s health\nconcluded my interview with Miss Pole.\n\nOn coming downstairs I found Mrs Forrester waiting for me at the entrance\nto the dining-parlour; she drew me in, and when the door was shut, she\ntried two or three times to begin on some subject, which was so\nunapproachable apparently, that I began to despair of our ever getting to\na clear understanding.  At last out it came; the poor old lady trembling\nall the time as if it were a great crime which she was exposing to\ndaylight, in telling me how very, very little she had to live upon; a\nconfession which she was brought to make from a dread lest we should\nthink that the small contribution named in her paper bore any proportion\nto her love and regard for Miss Matty.  And yet that sum which she so\neagerly relinquished was, in truth, more than a twentieth part of what\nshe had to live upon, and keep house, and a little serving-maid, all as\nbecame one born a Tyrrell.  And when the whole income does not nearly\namount to a hundred pounds, to give up a twentieth of it will necessitate\nmany careful economies, and many pieces of self-denial, small and\ninsignificant in the world’s account, but bearing a different value in\nanother account-book that I have heard of.  She did so wish she was rich,\nshe said, and this wish she kept repeating, with no thought of herself in\nit, only with a longing, yearning desire to be able to heap up Miss\nMatty’s measure of comforts.\n\nIt was some time before I could console her enough to leave her; and\nthen, on quitting the house, I was waylaid by Mrs Fitz-Adam, who had also\nher confidence to make of pretty nearly the opposite description.  She\nhad not liked to put down all that she could afford and was ready to\ngive.  She told me she thought she never could look Miss Matty in the\nface again if she presumed to be giving her so much as she should like to\ndo.  “Miss Matty!” continued she, “that I thought was such a fine young\nlady when I was nothing but a country girl, coming to market with eggs\nand butter and such like things.  For my father, though well-to-do, would\nalways make me go on as my mother had done before me, and I had to come\ninto Cranford every Saturday, and see after sales, and prices, and what\nnot.  And one day, I remember, I met Miss Matty in the lane that leads to\nCombehurst; she was walking on the footpath, which, you know, is raised a\ngood way above the road, and a gentleman rode beside her, and was talking\nto her, and she was looking down at some primroses she had gathered, and\npulling them all to pieces, and I do believe she was crying.  But after\nshe had passed, she turned round and ran after me to ask—oh, so\nkindly—about my poor mother, who lay on her death-bed; and when I cried\nshe took hold of my hand to comfort me—and the gentleman waiting for her\nall the time—and her poor heart very full of something, I am sure; and I\nthought it such an honour to be spoken to in that pretty way by the\nrector’s daughter, who visited at Arley Hall.  I have loved her ever\nsince, though perhaps I’d no right to do it; but if you can think of any\nway in which I might be allowed to give a little more without any one\nknowing it, I should be so much obliged to you, my dear.  And my brother\nwould be delighted to doctor her for nothing—medicines, leeches, and all.\nI know that he and her ladyship (my dear, I little thought in the days I\nwas telling you of that I should ever come to be sister-in-law to a\nladyship!) would do anything for her.  We all would.”\n\nI told her I was quite sure of it, and promised all sorts of things in my\nanxiety to get home to Miss Matty, who might well be wondering what had\nbecome of me—absent from her two hours without being able to account for\nit.  She had taken very little note of time, however, as she had been\noccupied in numberless little arrangements preparatory to the great step\nof giving up her house.  It was evidently a relief to her to be doing\nsomething in the way of retrenchment, for, as she said, whenever she\npaused to think, the recollection of the poor fellow with his bad\nfive-pound note came over her, and she felt quite dishonest; only if it\nmade her so uncomfortable, what must it not be doing to the directors of\nthe bank, who must know so much more of the misery consequent upon this\nfailure?  She almost made me angry by dividing her sympathy between these\ndirectors (whom she imagined overwhelmed by self-reproach for the\nmismanagement of other people’s affairs) and those who were suffering\nlike her.  Indeed, of the two, she seemed to think poverty a lighter\nburden than self-reproach; but I privately doubted if the directors would\nagree with her.\n\nOld hoards were taken out and examined as to their money value which\nluckily was small, or else I don’t know how Miss Matty would have\nprevailed upon herself to part with such things as her mother’s\nwedding-ring, the strange, uncouth brooch with which her father had\ndisfigured his shirt-frill, &c.  However, we arranged things a little in\norder as to their pecuniary estimation, and were all ready for my father\nwhen he came the next morning.\n\nI am not going to weary you with the details of all the business we went\nthrough; and one reason for not telling about them is, that I did not\nunderstand what we were doing at the time, and cannot recollect it now.\nMiss Matty and I sat assenting to accounts, and schemes, and reports, and\ndocuments, of which I do not believe we either of us understood a word;\nfor my father was clear-headed and decisive, and a capital man of\nbusiness, and if we made the slightest inquiry, or expressed the\nslightest want of comprehension, he had a sharp way of saying, “Eh? eh?\nit’s as clear as daylight.  What’s your objection?”  And as we had not\ncomprehended anything of what he had proposed, we found it rather\ndifficult to shape our objections; in fact, we never were sure if we had\nany.  So presently Miss Matty got into a nervously acquiescent state, and\nsaid “Yes,” and “Certainly,” at every pause, whether required or not; but\nwhen I once joined in as chorus to a “Decidedly,” pronounced by Miss\nMatty in a tremblingly dubious tone, my father fired round at me and\nasked me “What there was to decide?”  And I am sure to this day I have\nnever known.  But, in justice to him, I must say he had come over from\nDrumble to help Miss Matty when he could ill spare the time, and when his\nown affairs were in a very anxious state.\n\nWhile Miss Matty was out of the room giving orders for luncheon—and sadly\nperplexed between her desire of honouring my father by a delicate, dainty\nmeal, and her conviction that she had no right, now that all her money\nwas gone, to indulge this desire—I told him of the meeting of the\nCranford ladies at Miss Pole’s the day before.  He kept brushing his hand\nbefore his eyes as I spoke—and when I went back to Martha’s offer the\nevening before, of receiving Miss Matty as a lodger, he fairly walked\naway from me to the window, and began drumming with his fingers upon it.\nThen he turned abruptly round, and said, “See, Mary, how a good, innocent\nlife makes friends all around.  Confound it!  I could make a good lesson\nout of it if I were a parson; but, as it is, I can’t get a tail to my\nsentences—only I’m sure you feel what I want to say.  You and I will have\na walk after lunch and talk a bit more about these plans.”\n\nThe lunch—a hot savoury mutton-chop, and a little of the cold loin sliced\nand fried—was now brought in.  Every morsel of this last dish was\nfinished, to Martha’s great gratification.  Then my father bluntly told\nMiss Matty he wanted to talk to me alone, and that he would stroll out\nand see some of the old places, and then I could tell her what plan we\nthought desirable.  Just before we went out, she called me back and said,\n“Remember, dear, I’m the only one left—I mean, there’s no one to be hurt\nby what I do.  I’m willing to do anything that’s right and honest; and I\ndon’t think, if Deborah knows where she is, she’ll care so very much if\nI’m not genteel; because, you see, she’ll know all, dear.  Only let me\nsee what I can do, and pay the poor people as far as I’m able.”\n\nI gave her a hearty kiss, and ran after my father.  The result of our\nconversation was this.  If all parties were agreeable, Martha and Jem\nwere to be married with as little delay as possible, and they were to\nlive on in Miss Matty’s present abode; the sum which the Cranford ladies\nhad agreed to contribute annually being sufficient to meet the greater\npart of the rent, and leaving Martha free to appropriate what Miss Matty\nshould pay for her lodgings to any little extra comforts required.  About\nthe sale, my father was dubious at first.  He said the old rectory\nfurniture, however carefully used and reverently treated, would fetch\nvery little; and that little would be but as a drop in the sea of the\ndebts of the Town and County Bank.  But when I represented how Miss\nMatty’s tender conscience would be soothed by feeling that she had done\nwhat she could, he gave way; especially after I had told him the\nfive-pound note adventure, and he had scolded me well for allowing it.  I\nthen alluded to my idea that she might add to her small income by selling\ntea; and, to my surprise (for I had nearly given up the plan), my father\ngrasped at it with all the energy of a tradesman.  I think he reckoned\nhis chickens before they were hatched, for he immediately ran up the\nprofits of the sales that she could effect in Cranford to more than\ntwenty pounds a year.  The small dining-parlour was to be converted into\na shop, without any of its degrading characteristics; a table was to be\nthe counter; one window was to be retained unaltered, and the other\nchanged into a glass door.  I evidently rose in his estimation for having\nmade this bright suggestion.  I only hoped we should not both fall in\nMiss Matty’s.\n\nBut she was patient and content with all our arrangements.  She knew, she\nsaid, that we should do the best we could for her; and she only hoped,\nonly stipulated, that she should pay every farthing that she could be\nsaid to owe, for her father’s sake, who had been so respected in\nCranford.  My father and I had agreed to say as little as possible about\nthe bank, indeed never to mention it again, if it could be helped.  Some\nof the plans were evidently a little perplexing to her; but she had seen\nme sufficiently snubbed in the morning for want of comprehension to\nventure on too many inquiries now; and all passed over well with a hope\non her part that no one would be hurried into marriage on her account.\nWhen we came to the proposal that she should sell tea, I could see it was\nrather a shock to her; not on account of any personal loss of gentility\ninvolved, but only because she distrusted her own powers of action in a\nnew line of life, and would timidly have preferred a little more\nprivation to any exertion for which she feared she was unfitted.\nHowever, when she saw my father was bent upon it, she sighed, and said\nshe would try; and if she did not do well, of course she might give it\nup.  One good thing about it was, she did not think men ever bought tea;\nand it was of men particularly she was afraid.  They had such sharp loud\nways with them; and did up accounts, and counted their change so quickly!\nNow, if she might only sell comfits to children, she was sure she could\nplease them!\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV—A HAPPY RETURN\n\n\nBEFORE I left Miss Matty at Cranford everything had been comfortably\narranged for her.  Even Mrs Jamieson’s approval of her selling tea had\nbeen gained.  That oracle had taken a few days to consider whether by so\ndoing Miss Matty would forfeit her right to the privileges of society in\nCranford.  I think she had some little idea of mortifying Lady Glenmire\nby the decision she gave at last; which was to this effect: that whereas\na married woman takes her husband’s rank by the strict laws of\nprecedence, an unmarried woman retains the station her father occupied.\nSo Cranford was allowed to visit Miss Matty; and, whether allowed or not,\nit intended to visit Lady Glenmire.\n\nBut what was our surprise—our dismay—when we learnt that Mr and _Mrs\nHoggins_ were returning on the following Tuesday!  Mrs Hoggins!  Had she\nabsolutely dropped her title, and so, in a spirit of bravado, cut the\naristocracy to become a Hoggins!  She, who might have been called Lady\nGlenmire to her dying day!  Mrs Jamieson was pleased.  She said it only\nconvinced her of what she had known from the first, that the creature had\na low taste.  But “the creature” looked very happy on Sunday at church;\nnor did we see it necessary to keep our veils down on that side of our\nbonnets on which Mr and Mrs Hoggins sat, as Mrs Jamieson did; thereby\nmissing all the smiling glory of his face, and all the becoming blushes\nof hers.  I am not sure if Martha and Jem looked more radiant in the\nafternoon, when they, too, made their first appearance.  Mrs Jamieson\nsoothed the turbulence of her soul by having the blinds of her windows\ndrawn down, as if for a funeral, on the day when Mr and Mrs Hoggins\nreceived callers; and it was with some difficulty that she was prevailed\nupon to continue the _St James’s Chronicle_, so indignant was she with\nits having inserted the announcement of the marriage.\n\nMiss Matty’s sale went off famously.  She retained the furniture of her\nsitting-room and bedroom; the former of which she was to occupy till\nMartha could meet with a lodger who might wish to take it; and into this\nsitting-room and bedroom she had to cram all sorts of things, which were\n(the auctioneer assured her) bought in for her at the sale by an unknown\nfriend.  I always suspected Mrs Fitz-Adam of this; but she must have had\nan accessory, who knew what articles were particularly regarded by Miss\nMatty on account of their associations with her early days.  The rest of\nthe house looked rather bare, to be sure; all except one tiny bedroom, of\nwhich my father allowed me to purchase the furniture for my occasional\nuse in case of Miss Matty’s illness.\n\nI had expended my own small store in buying all manner of comfits and\nlozenges, in order to tempt the little people whom Miss Matty loved so\nmuch to come about her.  Tea in bright green canisters, and comfits in\ntumblers—Miss Matty and I felt quite proud as we looked round us on the\nevening before the shop was to be opened.  Martha had scoured the boarded\nfloor to a white cleanness, and it was adorned with a brilliant piece of\noil-cloth, on which customers were to stand before the table-counter.\nThe wholesome smell of plaster and whitewash pervaded the apartment.  A\nvery small “Matilda Jenkyns, licensed to sell tea,” was hidden under the\nlintel of the new door, and two boxes of tea, with cabalistic\ninscriptions all over them, stood ready to disgorge their contents into\nthe canisters.\n\nMiss Matty, as I ought to have mentioned before, had had some scruples of\nconscience at selling tea when there was already Mr Johnson in the town,\nwho included it among his numerous commodities; and, before she could\nquite reconcile herself to the adoption of her new business, she had\ntrotted down to his shop, unknown to me, to tell him of the project that\nwas entertained, and to inquire if it was likely to injure his business.\nMy father called this idea of hers “great nonsense,” and “wondered how\ntradespeople were to get on if there was to be a continual consulting of\neach other’s interests, which would put a stop to all competition\ndirectly.”  And, perhaps, it would not have done in Drumble, but in\nCranford it answered very well; for not only did Mr Johnson kindly put at\nrest all Miss Matty’s scruples and fear of injuring his business, but I\nhave reason to know he repeatedly sent customers to her, saying that the\nteas he kept were of a common kind, but that Miss Jenkyns had all the\nchoice sorts.  And expensive tea is a very favourite luxury with\nwell-to-do tradespeople and rich farmers’ wives, who turn up their noses\nat the Congou and Souchong prevalent at many tables of gentility, and\nwill have nothing else than Gunpowder and Pekoe for themselves.\n\nBut to return to Miss Matty.  It was really very pleasant to see how her\nunselfishness and simple sense of justice called out the same good\nqualities in others.  She never seemed to think any one would impose upon\nher, because she should be so grieved to do it to them.  I have heard her\nput a stop to the asseverations of the man who brought her coals by\nquietly saying, “I am sure you would be sorry to bring me wrong weight;”\nand if the coals were short measure that time, I don’t believe they ever\nwere again.  People would have felt as much ashamed of presuming on her\ngood faith as they would have done on that of a child.  But my father\nsays “such simplicity might be very well in Cranford, but would never do\nin the world.”  And I fancy the world must be very bad, for with all my\nfather’s suspicion of every one with whom he has dealings, and in spite\nof all his many precautions, he lost upwards of a thousand pounds by\nroguery only last year.\n\nI just stayed long enough to establish Miss Matty in her new mode of\nlife, and to pack up the library, which the rector had purchased.  He had\nwritten a very kind letter to Miss Matty, saying “how glad he should be\nto take a library, so well selected as he knew that the late Mr Jenkyns’s\nmust have been, at any valuation put upon them.”  And when she agreed to\nthis, with a touch of sorrowful gladness that they would go back to the\nrectory and be arranged on the accustomed walls once more, he sent word\nthat he feared that he had not room for them all, and perhaps Miss Matty\nwould kindly allow him to leave some volumes on her shelves.  But Miss\nMatty said that she had her Bible and “Johnson’s Dictionary,” and should\nnot have much time for reading, she was afraid; still, I retained a few\nbooks out of consideration for the rector’s kindness.\n\nThe money which he had paid, and that produced by the sale, was partly\nexpended in the stock of tea, and part of it was invested against a rainy\nday—_i.e._ old age or illness.  It was but a small sum, it is true; and\nit occasioned a few evasions of truth and white lies (all of which I\nthink very wrong indeed—in theory—and would rather not put them in\npractice), for we knew Miss Matty would be perplexed as to her duty if\nshe were aware of any little reserve-fund being made for her while the\ndebts of the bank remained unpaid.  Moreover, she had never been told of\nthe way in which her friends were contributing to pay the rent.  I should\nhave liked to tell her this, but the mystery of the affair gave a\npiquancy to their deed of kindness which the ladies were unwilling to\ngive up; and at first Martha had to shirk many a perplexed question as to\nher ways and means of living in such a house, but by-and-by Miss Matty’s\nprudent uneasiness sank down into acquiescence with the existing\narrangement.\n\nI left Miss Matty with a good heart.  Her sales of tea during the first\ntwo days had surpassed my most sanguine expectations.  The whole country\nround seemed to be all out of tea at once.  The only alteration I could\nhave desired in Miss Matty’s way of doing business was, that she should\nnot have so plaintively entreated some of her customers not to buy green\ntea—running it down as a slow poison, sure to destroy the nerves, and\nproduce all manner of evil.  Their pertinacity in taking it, in spite of\nall her warnings, distressed her so much that I really thought she would\nrelinquish the sale of it, and so lose half her custom; and I was driven\nto my wits’ end for instances of longevity entirely attributable to a\npersevering use of green tea.  But the final argument, which settled the\nquestion, was a happy reference of mine to the train-oil and tallow\ncandles which the Esquimaux not only enjoy but digest.  After that she\nacknowledged that “one man’s meat might be another man’s poison,” and\ncontented herself thence-forward with an occasional remonstrance when she\nthought the purchaser was too young and innocent to be acquainted with\nthe evil effects green tea produced on some constitutions, and an\nhabitual sigh when people old enough to choose more wisely would prefer\nit.\n\nI went over from Drumble once a quarter at least to settle the accounts,\nand see after the necessary business letters.  And, speaking of letters,\nI began to be very much ashamed of remembering my letter to the Aga\nJenkyns, and very glad I had never named my writing to any one.  I only\nhoped the letter was lost.  No answer came.  No sign was made.\n\nAbout a year after Miss Matty set up shop, I received one of Martha’s\nhieroglyphics, begging me to come to Cranford very soon.  I was afraid\nthat Miss Matty was ill, and went off that very afternoon, and took\nMartha by surprise when she saw me on opening the door.  We went into the\nkitchen as usual, to have our confidential conference, and then Martha\ntold me she was expecting her confinement very soon—in a week or two; and\nshe did not think Miss Matty was aware of it, and she wanted me to break\nthe news to her, “for indeed, miss,” continued Martha, crying\nhysterically, “I’m afraid she won’t approve of it, and I’m sure I don’t\nknow who is to take care of her as she should be taken care of when I am\nlaid up.”\n\nI comforted Martha by telling her I would remain till she was about\nagain, and only wished she had told me her reason for this sudden\nsummons, as then I would have brought the requisite stock of clothes.\nBut Martha was so tearful and tender-spirited, and unlike her usual self,\nthat I said as little as possible about myself, and endeavoured rather to\ncomfort Martha under all the probable and possible misfortunes which came\ncrowding upon her imagination.\n\nI then stole out of the house-door, and made my appearance as if I were a\ncustomer in the shop, just to take Miss Matty by surprise, and gain an\nidea of how she looked in her new situation.  It was warm May weather, so\nonly the little half-door was closed; and Miss Matty sat behind the\ncounter, knitting an elaborate pair of garters; elaborate they seemed to\nme, but the difficult stitch was no weight upon her mind, for she was\nsinging in a low voice to herself as her needles went rapidly in and out.\nI call it singing, but I dare say a musician would not use that word to\nthe tuneless yet sweet humming of the low worn voice.  I found out from\nthe words, far more than from the attempt at the tune, that it was the\nOld Hundredth she was crooning to herself; but the quiet continuous sound\ntold of content, and gave me a pleasant feeling, as I stood in the street\njust outside the door, quite in harmony with that soft May morning.  I\nwent in.  At first she did not catch who it was, and stood up as if to\nserve me; but in another minute watchful pussy had clutched her knitting,\nwhich was dropped in eager joy at seeing me.  I found, after we had had a\nlittle conversation, that it was as Martha said, and that Miss Matty had\nno idea of the approaching household event.  So I thought I would let\nthings take their course, secure that when I went to her with the baby in\nmy arms, I should obtain that forgiveness for Martha which she was\nneedlessly frightening herself into believing that Miss Matty would\nwithhold, under some notion that the new claimant would require\nattentions from its mother that it would be faithless treason to Miss\nMatty to render.\n\nBut I was right.  I think that must be an hereditary quality, for my\nfather says he is scarcely ever wrong.  One morning, within a week after\nI arrived, I went to call Miss Matty, with a little bundle of flannel in\nmy arms.  She was very much awe-struck when I showed her what it was, and\nasked for her spectacles off the dressing-table, and looked at it\ncuriously, with a sort of tender wonder at its small perfection of parts.\nShe could not banish the thought of the surprise all day, but went about\non tiptoe, and was very silent.  But she stole up to see Martha and they\nboth cried with joy, and she got into a complimentary speech to Jem, and\ndid not know how to get out of it again, and was only extricated from her\ndilemma by the sound of the shop-bell, which was an equal relief to the\nshy, proud, honest Jem, who shook my hand so vigorously when I\ncongratulated him, that I think I feel the pain of it yet.\n\nI had a busy life while Martha was laid up.  I attended on Miss Matty,\nand prepared her meals; I cast up her accounts, and examined into the\nstate of her canisters and tumblers.  I helped her, too, occasionally, in\nthe shop; and it gave me no small amusement, and sometimes a little\nuneasiness, to watch her ways there.  If a little child came in to ask\nfor an ounce of almond-comfits (and four of the large kind which Miss\nMatty sold weighed that much), she always added one more by “way of\nmake-weight,” as she called it, although the scale was handsomely turned\nbefore; and when I remonstrated against this, her reply was, “The little\nthings like it so much!”  There was no use in telling her that the fifth\ncomfit weighed a quarter of an ounce, and made every sale into a loss to\nher pocket.  So I remembered the green tea, and winged my shaft with a\nfeather out of her own plumage.  I told her how unwholesome\nalmond-comfits were, and how ill excess in them might make the little\nchildren.  This argument produced some effect; for, henceforward, instead\nof the fifth comfit, she always told them to hold out their tiny palms,\ninto which she shook either peppermint or ginger lozenges, as a\npreventive to the dangers that might arise from the previous sale.\nAltogether the lozenge trade, conducted on these principles, did not\npromise to be remunerative; but I was happy to find she had made more\nthan twenty pounds during the last year by her sales of tea; and,\nmoreover, that now she was accustomed to it, she did not dislike the\nemployment, which brought her into kindly intercourse with many of the\npeople round about.  If she gave them good weight, they, in their turn,\nbrought many a little country present to the “old rector’s daughter”; a\ncream cheese, a few new-laid eggs, a little fresh ripe fruit, a bunch of\nflowers.  The counter was quite loaded with these offerings sometimes, as\nshe told me.\n\nAs for Cranford in general, it was going on much as usual.  The Jamieson\nand Hoggins feud still raged, if a feud it could be called, when only one\nside cared much about it.  Mr and Mrs Hoggins were very happy together,\nand, like most very happy people, quite ready to be friendly; indeed, Mrs\nHoggins was really desirous to be restored to Mrs Jamieson’s good graces,\nbecause of the former intimacy.  But Mrs Jamieson considered their very\nhappiness an insult to the Glenmire family, to which she had still the\nhonour to belong, and she doggedly refused and rejected every advance.\nMr Mulliner, like a faithful clansman, espoused his mistress’ side with\nardour.  If he saw either Mr or Mrs Hoggins, he would cross the street,\nand appear absorbed in the contemplation of life in general, and his own\npath in particular, until he had passed them by.  Miss Pole used to amuse\nherself with wondering what in the world Mrs Jamieson would do, if either\nshe, or Mr Mulliner, or any other member of her household was taken ill;\nshe could hardly have the face to call in Mr Hoggins after the way she\nhad behaved to them.  Miss Pole grew quite impatient for some\nindisposition or accident to befall Mrs Jamieson or her dependents, in\norder that Cranford might see how she would act under the perplexing\ncircumstances.\n\nMartha was beginning to go about again, and I had already fixed a limit,\nnot very far distant, to my visit, when one afternoon, as I was sitting\nin the shop-parlour with Miss Matty—I remember the weather was colder now\nthan it had been in May, three weeks before, and we had a fire and kept\nthe door fully closed—we saw a gentleman go slowly past the window, and\nthen stand opposite to the door, as if looking out for the name which we\nhad so carefully hidden.  He took out a double eyeglass and peered about\nfor some time before he could discover it.  Then he came in.  And, all on\na sudden, it flashed across me that it was the Aga himself!  For his\nclothes had an out-of-the-way foreign cut about them, and his face was\ndeep brown, as if tanned and re-tanned by the sun.  His complexion\ncontrasted oddly with his plentiful snow-white hair, his eyes were dark\nand piercing, and he had an odd way of contracting them and puckering up\nhis cheeks into innumerable wrinkles when he looked earnestly at objects.\nHe did so to Miss Matty when he first came in.  His glance had first\ncaught and lingered a little upon me, but then turned, with the peculiar\nsearching look I have described, to Miss Matty.  She was a little\nfluttered and nervous, but no more so than she always was when any man\ncame into her shop.  She thought that he would probably have a note, or a\nsovereign at least, for which she would have to give change, which was an\noperation she very much disliked to perform.  But the present customer\nstood opposite to her, without asking for anything, only looking fixedly\nat her as he drummed upon the table with his fingers, just for all the\nworld as Miss Jenkyns used to do.  Miss Matty was on the point of asking\nhim what he wanted (as she told me afterwards), when he turned sharp to\nme: “Is your name Mary Smith?”\n\n“Yes!” said I.\n\nAll my doubts as to his identity were set at rest, and I only wondered\nwhat he would say or do next, and how Miss Matty would stand the joyful\nshock of what he had to reveal.  Apparently he was at a loss how to\nannounce himself, for he looked round at last in search of something to\nbuy, so as to gain time, and, as it happened, his eye caught on the\nalmond-comfits, and he boldly asked for a pound of “those things.”  I\ndoubt if Miss Matty had a whole pound in the shop, and, besides the\nunusual magnitude of the order, she was distressed with the idea of the\nindigestion they would produce, taken in such unlimited quantities.  She\nlooked up to remonstrate.  Something of tender relaxation in his face\nstruck home to her heart.  She said, “It is—oh, sir! can you be Peter?”\nand trembled from head to foot.  In a moment he was round the table and\nhad her in his arms, sobbing the tearless cries of old age.  I brought\nher a glass of wine, for indeed her colour had changed so as to alarm me\nand Mr Peter too.  He kept saying, “I have been too sudden for you,\nMatty—I have, my little girl.”\n\nI proposed that she should go at once up into the drawing-room and lie\ndown on the sofa there.  She looked wistfully at her brother, whose hand\nshe had held tight, even when nearly fainting; but on his assuring her\nthat he would not leave her, she allowed him to carry her upstairs.\n\nI thought that the best I could do was to run and put the kettle on the\nfire for early tea, and then to attend to the shop, leaving the brother\nand sister to exchange some of the many thousand things they must have to\nsay.  I had also to break the news to Martha, who received it with a\nburst of tears which nearly infected me.  She kept recovering herself to\nask if I was sure it was indeed Miss Matty’s brother, for I had mentioned\nthat he had grey hair, and she had always heard that he was a very\nhandsome young man.  Something of the same kind perplexed Miss Matty at\ntea-time, when she was installed in the great easy-chair opposite to Mr\nJenkyns in order to gaze her fill.  She could hardly drink for looking at\nhim, and as for eating, that was out of the question.\n\n“I suppose hot climates age people very quickly,” said she, almost to\nherself.  “When you left Cranford you had not a grey hair in your head.”\n\n“But how many years ago is that?” said Mr Peter, smiling.\n\n“Ah, true! yes, I suppose you and I are getting old.  But still I did not\nthink we were so very old!  But white hair is very becoming to you,\nPeter,” she continued—a little afraid lest she had hurt him by revealing\nhow his appearance had impressed her.\n\n“I suppose I forgot dates too, Matty, for what do you think I have\nbrought for you from India?  I have an Indian muslin gown and a pearl\nnecklace for you somewhere in my chest at Portsmouth.”  He smiled as if\namused at the idea of the incongruity of his presents with the appearance\nof his sister; but this did not strike her all at once, while the\nelegance of the articles did.  I could see that for a moment her\nimagination dwelt complacently on the idea of herself thus attired; and\ninstinctively she put her hand up to her throat—that little delicate\nthroat which (as Miss Pole had told me) had been one of her youthful\ncharms; but the hand met the touch of folds of soft muslin in which she\nwas always swathed up to her chin, and the sensation recalled a sense of\nthe unsuitableness of a pearl necklace to her age.  She said, “I’m afraid\nI’m too old; but it was very kind of you to think of it.  They are just\nwhat I should have liked years ago—when I was young.”\n\n“So I thought, my little Matty.  I remembered your tastes; they were so\nlike my dear mother’s.”  At the mention of that name the brother and\nsister clasped each other’s hands yet more fondly, and, although they\nwere perfectly silent, I fancied they might have something to say if they\nwere unchecked by my presence, and I got up to arrange my room for Mr\nPeter’s occupation that night, intending myself to share Miss Matty’s\nbed.  But at my movement, he started up.  “I must go and settle about a\nroom at the ‘George.’  My carpet-bag is there too.”\n\n“No!” said Miss Matty, in great distress—“you must not go; please, dear\nPeter—pray, Mary—oh! you must not go!”\n\nShe was so much agitated that we both promised everything she wished.\nPeter sat down again and gave her his hand, which for better security she\nheld in both of hers, and I left the room to accomplish my arrangements.\n\nLong, long into the night, far, far into the morning, did Miss Matty and\nI talk.  She had much to tell me of her brother’s life and adventures,\nwhich he had communicated to her as they had sat alone.  She said all was\nthoroughly clear to her; but I never quite understood the whole story;\nand when in after days I lost my awe of Mr Peter enough to question him\nmyself, he laughed at my curiosity, and told me stories that sounded so\nvery much like Baron Munchausen’s, that I was sure he was making fun of\nme.  What I heard from Miss Matty was that he had been a volunteer at the\nsiege of Rangoon; had been taken prisoner by the Burmese; and somehow\nobtained favour and eventual freedom from knowing how to bleed the chief\nof the small tribe in some case of dangerous illness; that on his release\nfrom years of captivity he had had his letters returned from England with\nthe ominous word “Dead” marked upon them; and, believing himself to be\nthe last of his race, he had settled down as an indigo planter, and had\nproposed to spend the remainder of his life in the country to whose\ninhabitants and modes of life he had become habituated, when my letter\nhad reached him; and, with the odd vehemence which characterised him in\nage as it had done in youth, he had sold his land and all his possessions\nto the first purchaser, and come home to the poor old sister, who was\nmore glad and rich than any princess when she looked at him.  She talked\nme to sleep at last, and then I was awakened by a slight sound at the\ndoor, for which she begged my pardon as she crept penitently into bed;\nbut it seems that when I could no longer confirm her belief that the\nlong-lost was really here—under the same roof—she had begun to fear lest\nit was only a waking dream of hers; that there never had been a Peter\nsitting by her all that blessed evening—but that the real Peter lay dead\nfar away beneath some wild sea-wave, or under some strange eastern tree.\nAnd so strong had this nervous feeling of hers become, that she was fain\nto get up and go and convince herself that he was really there by\nlistening through the door to his even, regular breathing—I don’t like to\ncall it snoring, but I heard it myself through two closed doors—and\nby-and-by it soothed Miss Matty to sleep.\n\nI don’t believe Mr Peter came home from India as rich as a nabob; he even\nconsidered himself poor, but neither he nor Miss Matty cared much about\nthat.  At any rate, he had enough to live upon “very genteelly” at\nCranford; he and Miss Matty together.  And a day or two after his\narrival, the shop was closed, while troops of little urchins gleefully\nawaited the shower of comfits and lozenges that came from time to time\ndown upon their faces as they stood up-gazing at Miss Matty’s\ndrawing-room windows.  Occasionally Miss Matty would say to them\n(half-hidden behind the curtains), “My dear children, don’t make\nyourselves ill;” but a strong arm pulled her back, and a more rattling\nshower than ever succeeded.  A part of the tea was sent in presents to\nthe Cranford ladies; and some of it was distributed among the old people\nwho remembered Mr Peter in the days of his frolicsome youth.  The Indian\nmuslin gown was reserved for darling Flora Gordon (Miss Jessie Brown’s\ndaughter).  The Gordons had been on the Continent for the last few years,\nbut were now expected to return very soon; and Miss Matty, in her\nsisterly pride, anticipated great delight in the joy of showing them Mr\nPeter.  The pearl necklace disappeared; and about that time many handsome\nand useful presents made their appearance in the households of Miss Pole\nand Mrs Forrester; and some rare and delicate Indian ornaments graced the\ndrawing-rooms of Mrs Jamieson and Mrs Fitz-Adam.  I myself was not\nforgotten.  Among other things, I had the handsomest-bound and best\nedition of Dr Johnson’s works that could be procured; and dear Miss\nMatty, with tears in her eyes, begged me to consider it as a present from\nher sister as well as herself.  In short, no one was forgotten; and, what\nwas more, every one, however insignificant, who had shown kindness to\nMiss Matty at any time, was sure of Mr Peter’s cordial regard.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI—PEACE TO CRANFORD\n\n\nIT was not surprising that Mr Peter became such a favourite at Cranford.\nThe ladies vied with each other who should admire him most; and no\nwonder, for their quiet lives were astonishingly stirred up by the\narrival from India—especially as the person arrived told more wonderful\nstories than Sindbad the Sailor; and, as Miss Pole said, was quite as\ngood as an Arabian Night any evening.  For my own part, I had vibrated\nall my life between Drumble and Cranford, and I thought it was quite\npossible that all Mr Peter’s stories might be true, although wonderful;\nbut when I found that, if we swallowed an anecdote of tolerable magnitude\none week, we had the dose considerably increased the next, I began to\nhave my doubts; especially as I noticed that when his sister was present\nthe accounts of Indian life were comparatively tame; not that she knew\nmore than we did, perhaps less.  I noticed also that when the rector came\nto call, Mr Peter talked in a different way about the countries he had\nbeen in.  But I don’t think the ladies in Cranford would have considered\nhim such a wonderful traveller if they had only heard him talk in the\nquiet way he did to him.  They liked him the better, indeed, for being\nwhat they called “so very Oriental.”\n\nOne day, at a select party in his honour, which Miss Pole gave, and from\nwhich, as Mrs Jamieson honoured it with her presence, and had even\noffered to send Mr Mulliner to wait, Mr and Mrs Hoggins and Mrs Fitz-Adam\nwere necessarily excluded—one day at Miss Pole’s, Mr Peter said he was\ntired of sitting upright against the hard-backed uneasy chairs, and asked\nif he might not indulge himself in sitting cross-legged.  Miss Pole’s\nconsent was eagerly given, and down he went with the utmost gravity.  But\nwhen Miss Pole asked me, in an audible whisper, “if he did not remind me\nof the Father of the Faithful?” I could not help thinking of poor Simon\nJones, the lame tailor, and while Mrs Jamieson slowly commented on the\nelegance and convenience of the attitude, I remembered how we had all\nfollowed that lady’s lead in condemning Mr Hoggins for vulgarity because\nhe simply crossed his legs as he sat still on his chair.  Many of Mr\nPeter’s ways of eating were a little strange amongst such ladies as Miss\nPole, and Miss Matty, and Mrs Jamieson, especially when I recollected the\nuntasted green peas and two-pronged forks at poor Mr Holbrook’s dinner.\n\nThe mention of that gentleman’s name recalls to my mind a conversation\nbetween Mr Peter and Miss Matty one evening in the summer after he\nreturned to Cranford.  The day had been very hot, and Miss Matty had been\nmuch oppressed by the weather, in the heat of which her brother revelled.\nI remember that she had been unable to nurse Martha’s baby, which had\nbecome her favourite employment of late, and which was as much at home in\nher arms as in its mother’s, as long as it remained a light-weight,\nportable by one so fragile as Miss Matty.  This day to which I refer,\nMiss Matty had seemed more than usually feeble and languid, and only\nrevived when the sun went down, and her sofa was wheeled to the open\nwindow, through which, although it looked into the principal street of\nCranford, the fragrant smell of the neighbouring hayfields came in every\nnow and then, borne by the soft breezes that stirred the dull air of the\nsummer twilight, and then died away.  The silence of the sultry\natmosphere was lost in the murmuring noises which came in from many an\nopen window and door; even the children were abroad in the street, late\nas it was (between ten and eleven), enjoying the game of play for which\nthey had not had spirits during the heat of the day.  It was a source of\nsatisfaction to Miss Matty to see how few candles were lighted, even in\nthe apartments of those houses from which issued the greatest signs of\nlife.  Mr Peter, Miss Matty, and I had all been quiet, each with a\nseparate reverie, for some little time, when Mr Peter broke in—\n\n“Do you know, little Matty, I could have sworn you were on the high road\nto matrimony when I left England that last time!  If anybody had told me\nyou would have lived and died an old maid then, I should have laughed in\ntheir faces.”\n\nMiss Matty made no reply, and I tried in vain to think of some subject\nwhich should effectually turn the conversation; but I was very stupid;\nand before I spoke he went on—\n\n“It was Holbrook, that fine manly fellow who lived at Woodley, that I\nused to think would carry off my little Matty.  You would not think it\nnow, I dare say, Mary; but this sister of mine was once a very pretty\ngirl—at least, I thought so, and so I’ve a notion did poor Holbrook.\nWhat business had he to die before I came home to thank him for all his\nkindness to a good-for-nothing cub as I was?  It was that that made me\nfirst think he cared for you; for in all our fishing expeditions it was\nMatty, Matty, we talked about.  Poor Deborah!  What a lecture she read me\non having asked him home to lunch one day, when she had seen the Arley\ncarriage in the town, and thought that my lady might call.  Well, that’s\nlong years ago; more than half a life-time, and yet it seems like\nyesterday!  I don’t know a fellow I should have liked better as a\nbrother-in-law.  You must have played your cards badly, my little Matty,\nsomehow or another—wanted your brother to be a good go-between, eh,\nlittle one?” said he, putting out his hand to take hold of hers as she\nlay on the sofa.  “Why, what’s this? you’re shivering and shaking, Matty,\nwith that confounded open window.  Shut it, Mary, this minute!”\n\nI did so, and then stooped down to kiss Miss Matty, and see if she really\nwere chilled.  She caught at my hand, and gave it a hard squeeze—but\nunconsciously, I think—for in a minute or two she spoke to us quite in\nher usual voice, and smiled our uneasiness away, although she patiently\nsubmitted to the prescriptions we enforced of a warm bed and a glass of\nweak negus.  I was to leave Cranford the next day, and before I went I\nsaw that all the effects of the open window had quite vanished.  I had\nsuperintended most of the alterations necessary in the house and\nhousehold during the latter weeks of my stay.  The shop was once more a\nparlour: the empty resounding rooms again furnished up to the very\ngarrets.\n\nThere had been some talk of establishing Martha and Jem in another house,\nbut Miss Matty would not hear of this.  Indeed, I never saw her so much\nroused as when Miss Pole had assumed it to be the most desirable\narrangement.  As long as Martha would remain with Miss Matty, Miss Matty\nwas only too thankful to have her about her; yes, and Jem too, who was a\nvery pleasant man to have in the house, for she never saw him from week’s\nend to week’s end.  And as for the probable children, if they would all\nturn out such little darlings as her god-daughter, Matilda, she should\nnot mind the number, if Martha didn’t.  Besides, the next was to be\ncalled Deborah—a point which Miss Matty had reluctantly yielded to\nMartha’s stubborn determination that her first-born was to be Matilda.\nSo Miss Pole had to lower her colours, and even her voice, as she said to\nme that, as Mr and Mrs Hearn were still to go on living in the same house\nwith Miss Matty, we had certainly done a wise thing in hiring Martha’s\nniece as an auxiliary.\n\nI left Miss Matty and Mr Peter most comfortable and contented; the only\nsubject for regret to the tender heart of the one, and the social\nfriendly nature of the other, being the unfortunate quarrel between Mrs\nJamieson and the plebeian Hogginses and their following.  In joke, I\nprophesied one day that this would only last until Mrs Jamieson or Mr\nMulliner were ill, in which case they would only be too glad to be\nfriends with Mr Hoggins; but Miss Matty did not like my looking forward\nto anything like illness in so light a manner, and before the year was\nout all had come round in a far more satisfactory way.\n\nI received two Cranford letters on one auspicious October morning.  Both\nMiss Pole and Miss Matty wrote to ask me to come over and meet the\nGordons, who had returned to England alive and well with their two\nchildren, now almost grown up.  Dear Jessie Brown had kept her old kind\nnature, although she had changed her name and station; and she wrote to\nsay that she and Major Gordon expected to be in Cranford on the\nfourteenth, and she hoped and begged to be remembered to Mrs Jamieson\n(named first, as became her honourable station), Miss Pole and Miss\nMatty—could she ever forget their kindness to her poor father and\nsister?—Mrs Forrester, Mr Hoggins (and here again came in an allusion to\nkindness shown to the dead long ago), his new wife, who as such must\nallow Mrs Gordon to desire to make her acquaintance, and who was,\nmoreover, an old Scotch friend of her husband’s.  In short, every one was\nnamed, from the rector—who had been appointed to Cranford in the interim\nbetween Captain Brown’s death and Miss Jessie’s marriage, and was now\nassociated with the latter event—down to Miss Betty Barker.  All were\nasked to the luncheon; all except Mrs Fitz-Adam, who had come to live in\nCranford since Miss Jessie Brown’s days, and whom I found rather moping\non account of the omission.  People wondered at Miss Betty Barker’s being\nincluded in the honourable list; but, then, as Miss Pole said, we must\nremember the disregard of the genteel proprieties of life in which the\npoor captain had educated his girls, and for his sake we swallowed our\npride.  Indeed, Mrs Jamieson rather took it as a compliment, as putting\nMiss Betty (formerly _her_ maid) on a level with “those Hogginses.”\n\nBut when I arrived in Cranford, nothing was as yet ascertained of Mrs\nJamieson’s own intentions; would the honourable lady go, or would she\nnot?  Mr Peter declared that she should and she would; Miss Pole shook\nher head and desponded.  But Mr Peter was a man of resources.  In the\nfirst place, he persuaded Miss Matty to write to Mrs Gordon, and to tell\nher of Mrs Fitz-Adam’s existence, and to beg that one so kind, and\ncordial, and generous, might be included in the pleasant invitation.  An\nanswer came back by return of post, with a pretty little note for Mrs\nFitz-Adam, and a request that Miss Matty would deliver it herself and\nexplain the previous omission.  Mrs Fitz-Adam was as pleased as could be,\nand thanked Miss Matty over and over again.  Mr Peter had said, “Leave\nMrs Jamieson to me;” so we did; especially as we knew nothing that we\ncould do to alter her determination if once formed.\n\nI did not know, nor did Miss Matty, how things were going on, until Miss\nPole asked me, just the day before Mrs Gordon came, if I thought there\nwas anything between Mr Peter and Mrs Jamieson in the matrimonial line,\nfor that Mrs Jamieson was really going to the lunch at the “George.”  She\nhad sent Mr Mulliner down to desire that there might be a footstool put\nto the warmest seat in the room, as she meant to come, and knew that\ntheir chairs were very high.  Miss Pole had picked this piece of news up,\nand from it she conjectured all sorts of things, and bemoaned yet more.\n“If Peter should marry, what would become of poor dear Miss Matty?  And\nMrs Jamieson, of all people!”  Miss Pole seemed to think there were other\nladies in Cranford who would have done more credit to his choice, and I\nthink she must have had someone who was unmarried in her head, for she\nkept saying, “It was so wanting in delicacy in a widow to think of such a\nthing.”\n\nWhen I got back to Miss Matty’s I really did begin to think that Mr Peter\nmight be thinking of Mrs Jamieson for a wife, and I was as unhappy as\nMiss Pole about it.  He had the proof sheet of a great placard in his\nhand.  “Signor Brunoni, Magician to the King of Delhi, the Rajah of Oude,\nand the great Lama of Thibet,” &c. &c., was going to “perform in Cranford\nfor one night only,” the very next night; and Miss Matty, exultant,\nshowed me a letter from the Gordons, promising to remain over this\ngaiety, which Miss Matty said was entirely Peter’s doing.  He had written\nto ask the signor to come, and was to be at all the expenses of the\naffair.  Tickets were to be sent gratis to as many as the room would\nhold.  In short, Miss Matty was charmed with the plan, and said that\nto-morrow Cranford would remind her of the Preston Guild, to which she\nhad been in her youth—a luncheon at the “George,” with the dear Gordons,\nand the signor in the Assembly Room in the evening.  But I—I looked only\nat the fatal words:—\n\n    “_Under the Patronage of the_ HONOURABLE MRS JAMIESON.”\n\nShe, then, was chosen to preside over this entertainment of Mr Peter’s;\nshe was perhaps going to displace my dear Miss Matty in his heart, and\nmake her life lonely once more!  I could not look forward to the morrow\nwith any pleasure; and every innocent anticipation of Miss Matty’s only\nserved to add to my annoyance.\n\nSo, angry and irritated, and exaggerating every little incident which\ncould add to my irritation, I went on till we were all assembled in the\ngreat parlour at the “George.”  Major and Mrs Gordon and pretty Flora and\nMr Ludovic were all as bright and handsome and friendly as could be; but\nI could hardly attend to them for watching Mr Peter, and I saw that Miss\nPole was equally busy.  I had never seen Mrs Jamieson so roused and\nanimated before; her face looked full of interest in what Mr Peter was\nsaying.  I drew near to listen.  My relief was great when I caught that\nhis words were not words of love, but that, for all his grave face, he\nwas at his old tricks.  He was telling her of his travels in India, and\ndescribing the wonderful height of the Himalaya mountains: one touch\nafter another added to their size, and each exceeded the former in\nabsurdity; but Mrs Jamieson really enjoyed all in perfect good faith.  I\nsuppose she required strong stimulants to excite her to come out of her\napathy.  Mr Peter wound up his account by saying that, of course, at that\naltitude there were none of the animals to be found that existed in the\nlower regions; the game,—everything was different.  Firing one day at\nsome flying creature, he was very much dismayed when it fell, to find\nthat he had shot a cherubim!  Mr Peter caught my eye at this moment, and\ngave me such a funny twinkle, that I felt sure he had no thoughts of Mrs\nJamieson as a wife from that time.  She looked uncomfortably amazed—\n\n“But, Mr Peter, shooting a cherubim—don’t you think—I am afraid that was\nsacrilege!”\n\nMr Peter composed his countenance in a moment, and appeared shocked at\nthe idea, which, as he said truly enough, was now presented to him for\nthe first time; but then Mrs Jamieson must remember that he had been\nliving for a long time among savages—all of whom were heathens—some of\nthem, he was afraid, were downright Dissenters.  Then, seeing Miss Matty\ndraw near, he hastily changed the conversation, and after a little while,\nturning to me, he said, “Don’t be shocked, prim little Mary, at all my\nwonderful stories.  I consider Mrs Jamieson fair game, and besides I am\nbent on propitiating her, and the first step towards it is keeping her\nwell awake.  I bribed her here by asking her to let me have her name as\npatroness for my poor conjuror this evening; and I don’t want to give her\ntime enough to get up her rancour against the Hogginses, who are just\ncoming in.  I want everybody to be friends, for it harasses Matty so much\nto hear of these quarrels.  I shall go at it again by-and-by, so you need\nnot look shocked.  I intend to enter the Assembly Room to-night with Mrs\nJamieson on one side, and my lady, Mrs Hoggins, on the other.  You see if\nI don’t.”\n\nSomehow or another he did; and fairly got them into conversation\ntogether.  Major and Mrs Gordon helped at the good work with their\nperfect ignorance of any existing coolness between any of the inhabitants\nof Cranford.\n\nEver since that day there has been the old friendly sociability in\nCranford society; which I am thankful for, because of my dear Miss\nMatty’s love of peace and kindliness.  We all love Miss Matty, and I\nsomehow think we are all of us better when she is near us."