Cranford..............................................................................................................................................................1

Elizabeth Gaskell.....................................................................................................................................1

IN the first place, Cranford is in possession of the Amazons; all the holders of houses above a certain rent are

women. If a married couple come to settle in the town, somehow the gentleman disappears; he is either fairly

frightened to death by being the only man in the Cranford evening parties, or he is accounted for by being

with his regiment, his ship, or closely engaged in business all the week in the great neighbouring commercial

town of Drumble, distant only twenty miles on a railroad. In short, whatever does become of the gentlemen,

they are not at Cranford. What could they do if they were there? The surgeon has his round of thirty miles,

and sleeps at Cranford; but every man cannot be a surgeon. For keeping the trim gardens full of choice

flowers without a weed to speck them; for frightening away little boys who look wistfully at the said flowers

through the railings; for rushing out at the geese that occasionally venture in to the gardens if the gates are

left open; for deciding all questions of literature and politics without troubling themselves with unnecessary

reasons or arguments; for obtaining clear and correct knowledge of everybody's affairs in the parish; for

keeping their neat maidservants in admirable order; for kindness (somewhat dictatorial) to the poor, and real

tender good offices to each other whenever they are in distress, the ladies of Cranford are quite sufficient. "A

man," as one of them observed to me once, "is SO in the way in the house!" Although the ladies of Cranford

know all each other's proceedings, they are exceedingly indifferent to each other's opinions. Indeed, as each

has her own individuality, not to say eccentricity, pretty strongly developed, nothing is so easy as verbal

The Cranford ladies have only an occasional little quarrel, spirited out in a few peppery words and angry

jerks of the head; just enough to prevent the even tenor of their lives from becoming too flat. Their dress is

very independent of fashion; as they observe, "What does it signify how we dress here at Cranford, where

everybody knows us?" And if they go from home, their reason is equally cogent, "What does it signify how

we dress here, where nobody knows us?" The materials of their clothes are, in general, good and plain, and

most of them are nearly as scrupulous as Miss Tyler, of cleanly memory; but I will answer for it, the last

gigot, the last tight and scanty petticoat in wear in England, was seen in Cranford and seen without a smile.

I can testify to a magnificent family red silk umbrella, under which a gentle little spinster, left alone of many

brothers and sisters, used to patter to church on rainy days. Have you any red silk umbrellas in London? We

had a tradition of the first that had ever been seen in Cranford; and the little boys mobbed it, and called it "a

stick in petticoats." It might have been the very red silk one I have described, held by a strong father over a

troop of little ones; the poor little lady the survivor of all could scarcely carry it.

Then there were rules and regulations for visiting and calls; and they were announced to any young people

who might be staying in the town, with all the solemnity with which the old Manx laws were read once a year

"Our friends have sent to inquire how you are after your journey tonight, my dear" (fifteen miles in a

gentleman's carriage); "they will give you some rest tomorrow, but the next day, I have no doubt, they will

call; so be at liberty after twelve from twelve to three are our calling hours."

"It is the third day; I dare say your mamma has told you, my dear, never to let more than three days elapse

between receiving a call and returning it; and also, that you are never to stay longer than a quarter of an

"But am I to look at my watch? How am I to find out when a quarter of an hour has passed?"

"You must keep thinking about the time, my dear, and not allow yourself to forget it in conversation."

As everybody had this rule in their minds, whether they received or paid a call, of course no absorbing

subject was ever spoken about. We kept ourselves to short sentences of small talk, and were punctual to our

I imagine that a few of the gentlefolks of Cranford were poor, and had some difficulty in making both ends

meet; but they were like the Spartans, and concealed their smart under a smiling face. We none of us spoke of

money, because that subject savoured of commerce and trade, and though some might be poor, we were all

aristocratic. The Cranfordians had that kindly ESPRIT DE CORPS which made them overlook all

deficiencies in success when some among them tried to conceal their poverty. When Mrs Forrester, for

instance, gave a party in her babyhouse of a dwelling, and the little maiden disturbed the ladies on the sofa

by a request that she might get the teatray out from underneath, everyone took this novel proceeding as the

most natural thing in the world, and talked on about household forms and ceremonies as if we all believed

that our hostess had a regular servants' hall, second table, with housekeeper and steward, instead of the one

little charityschool maiden, whose short ruddy arms could never have been strong enough to carry the tray

upstairs, if she had not been assisted in private by her mistress, who now sat in state, pretending not to know

what cakes were sent up, though she knew, and we knew, and she knew that we knew, and we knew that she

knew that we knew, she had been busy all the morning making teabread and spongecakes.

There were one or two consequences arising from this general but unacknowledged poverty, and this very

much acknowledged gentility, which were not amiss, and which might be introduced into many circles of

society to their great improvement. For instance, the inhabitants of Cranford kept early hours, and clattered

home in their pattens, under the guidance of a lanternbearer, about nine o'clock at night; and the whole town

was abed and asleep by half past ten. Moreover, it was considered "vulgar" (a tremendous word in

Cranford) to give anything expensive, in the way of eatable or drinkable, at the evening entertainments.

Wafer breadandbutter and spongebiscuits were all that the Honourable Mrs Jamieson gave; and she was

sisterinlaw to the late Earl of Glenmire, although she did practise such "elegant economy."

"Elegant economy!" How naturally one falls back into the phraseology of Cranford! There, economy was

always "elegant," and moneyspending always "vulgar and ostentatious"; a sort of sour grapeism which

made us very peaceful and satisfied. I never shall forget the dismay felt when a certain Captain Brown came

to live at Cranford, and openly spoke about his being poor not in a whisper to an intimate friend, the doors

and windows being previously closed, but in the public street! in a loud military voice! alleging his poverty

as a reason for not taking a particular house. The ladies of Cranford were already rather moaning over the

invasion of their territories by a man and a gentleman. He was a halfpay captain, and had obtained some

situation on a neighbouring railroad, which had been vehemently petitioned against by the little town; and if,

in addition to his masculine gender, and his connection with the obnoxious railroad, he was so brazen as to

talk of being poor why, then, indeed, he must be sent to Coventry. Death was as true and as common as

poverty; yet people never spoke about that, loud out in the streets. It was a word not to be mentioned to ears

polite. We had tacitly agreed to ignore that any with whom we associated on terms of visiting equality could

ever be prevented by poverty from doing anything that they wished. If we walked to or from a party, it was

because the night was SO fine, or the air SO refreshing, not because sedanchairs were expensive. If we wore

prints, instead of summer silks, it was because we preferred a washing material; and so on, till we blinded

ourselves to the vulgar fact that we were, all of us, people of very moderate means. Of course, then, we did

not know what to make of a man who could speak of poverty as if it was not a disgrace. Yet, somehow,

Captain Brown made himself respected in Cranford, and was called upon, in spite of all resolutions to the

contrary. I was surprised to hear his opinions quoted as authority at a visit which I paid to Cranford about a

year after he had settled in the town. My own friends had been among the bitterest opponents of any proposal

to visit the Captain and his daughters, only twelve months before; and now he was even admitted in the

tabooed hours before twelve. True, it was to discover the cause of a smoking chimney, before the fire was

lighted; but still Captain Brown walked upstairs, nothing daunted, spoke in a voice too large for the room,

and joked quite in the way of a tame man about the house. He had been blind to all the small slights, and

omissions of trivial ceremonies, with which he had been received. He had been friendly, though the Cranford

ladies had been cool; he had answered small sarcastic compliments in good faith; and with his manly

frankness had overpowered all the shrinking which met him as a man who was not ashamed to be poor. And,

at last, his excellent masculine common sense, and his facility in devising expedients to overcome domestic

dilemmas, had gained him an extraordinary place as authority among the Cranford ladies. He himself went on

in his course, as unaware of his popularity as he had been of the reverse; and I am sure he was startled one

day when he found his advice so highly esteemed as to make some counsel which he had given in jest to be

It was on this subject: An old lady had an Alderney cow, which she looked upon as a daughter. You could not

pay the short quarter of an hour call without being told of the wonderful milk or wonderful intelligence of this

animal. The whole town knew and kindly regarded Miss Betsy Barker's Alderney; therefore great was the

sympathy and regret when, in an unguarded moment, the poor cow tumbled into a limepit. She moaned so

loudly that she was soon heard and rescued; but meanwhile the poor beast had lost most of her hair, and came

out looking naked, cold, and miserable, in a bare skin. Everybody pitied the animal, though a few could not

restrain their smiles at her droll appearance. Miss Betsy Barker absolutely cried with sorrow and dismay; and

it was said she thought of trying a bath of oil. This remedy, perhaps, was recommended by some one of the

number whose advice she asked; but the proposal, if ever it was made, was knocked on the head by Captain

Brown's decided "Get her a flannel waistcoat and flannel drawers, ma'am, if you wish to keep her alive. But

Miss Betsy Barker dried her eyes, and thanked the Captain heartily; she set to work, and byandby all the

town turned out to see the Alderney meekly going to her pasture, clad in dark grey flannel. I have watched

Captain Brown had taken a small house on the outskirts of the town, where he lived with his two daughters.

He must have been upwards of sixty at the time of the first visit I paid to Cranford after I had left it as a

residence. But he had a wiry, welltrained, elastic figure, a stiff military throwback of his head, and a

springing step, which made him appear much younger than he was. His eldest daughter looked almost as old

as himself, and betrayed the fact that his real was more than his apparent age. Miss Brown must have been

forty; she had a sickly, pained, careworn expression on her face, and looked as if the gaiety of youth had long

faded out of sight. Even when young she must have been plain and hard featured. Miss Jessie Brown was

ten years younger than her sister, and twenty shades prettier. Her face was round and dimpled. Miss Jenkyns

once said, in a passion against Captain Brown (the cause of which I will tell you presently), "that she thought

it was time for Miss Jessie to leave off her dimples, and not always to be trying to look like a child." It was

true there was something childlike in her face; and there will be, I think, till she dies, though she should live

to a hundred. Her eyes were large blue wondering eyes, looking straight at you; her nose was unformed and

snub, and her lips were red and dewy; she wore her hair, too, in little rows of curls, which heightened this

appearance. I do not know whether she was pretty or not; but I liked her face, and so did everybody, and I do

not think she could help her dimples. She had something of her father's jauntiness of gait and manner; and

any female observer might detect a slight difference in the attire of the two sisters that of Miss Jessie being

about two pounds per annum more expensive than Miss Brown's. Two pounds was a large sum in Captain

Such was the impression made upon me by the Brown family when I first saw them all together in Cranford

Church. The Captain I had met before on the occasion of the smoky chimney, which he had cured by some

simple alteration in the flue. In church, he held his double eyeglass to his eyes during the Morning Hymn,

and then lifted up his head erect and sang out loud and joyfully. He made the responses louder than the clerk

an old man with a piping feeble voice, who, I think, felt aggrieved at the Captain's sonorous bass, and

On coming out of church, the brisk Captain paid the most gallant attention to his two daughters.

He nodded and smiled to his acquaintances; but he shook hands with none until he had helped Miss Brown to

unfurl her umbrella, had relieved her of her prayerbook, and had waited patiently till she, with trembling

I wonder what the Cranford ladies did with Captain Brown at their parties. We had often rejoiced, in former

days, that there was no gentleman to be attended to, and to find conversation for, at the cardparties. We had

congratulated ourselves upon the snugness of the evenings; and, in our love for gentility, and distaste of

mankind, we had almost persuaded ourselves that to be a man was to be "vulgar"; so that when I found my

friend and hostess, Miss Jenkyns, was going to have a party in my honour, and that Captain and the Miss

Browns were invited, I wondered much what would be the course of the evening. Cardtables, with green

baize tops, were set out by daylight, just as usual; it was the third week in November, so the evenings closed

in about four. Candles, and clean packs of cards, were arranged on each table. The fire was made up; the neat

maidservant had received her last directions; and there we stood, dressed in our best, each with a

candlelighter in our hands, ready to dart at the candles as soon as the first knock came. Parties in Cranford

were solemn festivities, making the ladies feel gravely elated as they sat together in their best dresses. As

soon as three had arrived, we sat down to "Preference," I being the unlucky fourth. The next four comers

were put down immediately to another table; and presently the tea trays, which I had seen set out in the

storeroom as I passed in the morning, were placed each on the middle of a cardtable. The china was

delicate eggshell; the oldfashioned silver glittered with polishing; but the eatables were of the slightest

description. While the trays were yet on the tables, Captain and the Miss Browns came in; and I could see

that, somehow or other, the Captain was a favourite with all the ladies present. Ruffled brows were smoothed,

sharp voices lowered at his approach. Miss Brown looked ill, and depressed almost to gloom. Miss Jessie

smiled as usual, and seemed nearly as popular as her father. He immediately and quietly assumed the man's

place in the room; attended to every one's wants, lessened the pretty maidservant's labour by waiting on

empty cups and breadandbutterless ladies; and yet did it all in so easy and dignified a manner, and so much

as if it were a matter of course for the strong to attend to the weak, that he was a true man throughout. He

played for threepenny points with as grave an interest as if they had been pounds; and yet, in all his attention

to strangers, he had an eye on his suffering daughter for suffering I was sure she was, though to many eyes

she might only appear to be irritable. Miss Jessie could not play cards: but she talked to the sittersout, who,

before her coming, had been rather inclined to be cross. She sang, too, to an old cracked piano, which I think

had been a spinet in its youth. Miss Jessie sang, "Jock of Hazeldean" a little out of tune; but we were none of

us musical, though Miss Jenkyns beat time, out of time, by way of appearing to be so.

It was very good of Miss Jenkyns to do this; for I had seen that, a little before, she had been a good deal

annoyed by Miss Jessie Brown's unguarded admission (A PROPOS of Shetland wool) that she had an uncle,

her mother's brother, who was a shopkeeper in Edinburgh. Miss Jenkyns tried to drown this confession by a

terrible cough for the Honourable Mrs Jamieson was sitting at a cardtable nearest Miss Jessie, and what

would she say or think if she found out she was in the same room with a shopkeeper's niece! But Miss Jessie

Brown (who had no tact, as we all agreed the next morning) WOULD repeat the information, and assure Miss

Pole she could easily get her the identical Shetland wool required, "through my uncle, who has the best

assortment of Shetland goods of any one in Edinbro'." It was to take the taste of this out of our mouths, and

the sound of this out of our ears, that Miss Jenkyns proposed music; so I say again, it was very good of her to

When the trays reappeared with biscuits and wine, punctually at a quarter to nine, there was conversation,

comparing of cards, and talking over tricks; but byandby Captain Brown sported a bit of literature.

"Have you seen any numbers of 'The Pickwick Papers'?" said he. (They we're then publishing in parts.)

Now Miss Jenkyns was daughter of a deceased rector of Cranford; and, on the strength of a number of

manuscript sermons, and a pretty good library of divinity, considered herself literary, and looked upon any

conversation about books as a challenge to her. So she answered and said, "Yes, she had seen them; indeed,

"And what do you think of them?" exclaimed Captain Brown. "Aren't they famously good?"

"I must say, I don't think they are by any means equal to Dr Johnson. Still, perhaps, the author is young. Let

him persevere, and who knows what he may become if he will take the great Doctor for his model?" This was

evidently too much for Captain Brown to take placidly; and I saw the words on the tip of his tongue before

"I am quite aware of that," returned she. "And I make allowances, Captain Brown."

"Just allow me to read you a scene out of this month's number," pleaded he. "I had it only this morning, and I

"As you please," said she, settling herself with an air of resignation. He read the account of the "swarry"

which Sam Weller gave at Bath. Some of us laughed heartily. I did not dare, because I was staying in the

house. Miss Jenkyns sat in patient gravity. When it was ended, she turned to me, and said with mild dignity

"Now allow me to read you a scene, and then the present company can judge between your favourite, Mr

She read one of the conversations between Rasselas and Imlac, in a highpitched, majestic voice: and when

she had ended, she said, "I imagine I am now justified in my preference of Dr Johnson as a writer of fiction."

The Captain screwed his lips up, and drummed on the table, but he did not speak. She thought she would give

"I consider it vulgar, and below the dignity of literature, to publish in numbers."

"How was the RAMBLER published, ma'am?" asked Captain Brown in a low voice, which I think Miss

"Dr Johnson's style is a model for young beginners. My father recommended it to me when I began to write

letters I have formed my own style upon it; I recommended it to your favourite."

"I should be very sorry for him to exchange his style for any such pompous writing," said Captain Brown.

Miss Jenkyns felt this as a personal affront, in a way of which the Captain had not dreamed. Epistolary

writing she and her friends considered as her FORTE. Many a copy of many a letter have I seen written and

corrected on the slate, before she "seized the half hour just previous to posttime to assure" her friends of

this or of that; and Dr Johnson was, as she said, her model in these compositions. She drew herself up with

dignity, and only replied to Captain Brown's last remark by saying, with marked emphasis on every syllable,

It is said I won't vouch for the fact that Captain Brown was heard to say, SOTTO VOCE, "Dn Dr

Johnson!" If he did, he was penitent afterwards, as he showed by going to stand near Miss Jenkyns'

armchair, and endeavouring to beguile her into conversation on some more pleasing subject. But she was

inexorable. The next day she made the remark I have mentioned about Miss Jessie's dimples.

IT was impossible to live a month at Cranford and not know the daily habits of each resident; and long before

my visit was ended I knew much concerning the whole Brown trio. There was nothing new to be discovered

respecting their poverty; for they had spoken simply and openly about that from the very first. They made no

mystery of the necessity for their being economical. All that remained to be discovered was the Captain's

infinite kindness of heart, and the various modes in which, unconsciously to himself, he manifested it. Some

little anecdotes were talked about for some time after they occurred. As we did not read much, and as all the

ladies were pretty well suited with servants, there was a dearth of subjects for conversation. We therefore

discussed the circumstance of the Captain taking a poor old woman's dinner out of her hands one very

slippery Sunday. He had met her returning from the bakehouse as he came from church, and noticed her

precarious footing; and, with the grave dignity with which he did everything, he relieved her of her burden,

and steered along the street by her side, carrying her baked mutton and potatoes safely home. This was

thought very eccentric; and it was rather expected that he would pay a round of calls, on the Monday

morning, to explain and apologise to the Cranford sense of propriety: but he did no such thing: and then it

was decided that he was ashamed, and was keeping out of sight. In a kindly pity for him, we began to say,

"After all, the Sunday morning's occurrence showed great goodness of heart," and it was resolved that he

should be comforted on his next appearance amongst us; but, lo! he came down upon us, untouched by any

sense of shame, speaking loud and bass as ever, his head thrown back, his wig as jaunty and wellcurled as

Miss Pole and Miss Jessie Brown had set up a kind of intimacy on the strength of the Shetland wool and the

new knitting stitches; so it happened that when I went to visit Miss Pole I saw more of the Browns than I had

done while staying with Miss Jenkyns, who had never got over what she called Captain Brown's disparaging

remarks upon Dr Johnson as a writer of light and agreeable fiction. I found that Miss Brown was seriously ill

of some lingering, incurable complaint, the pain occasioned by which gave the uneasy expression to her face

that I had taken for unmitigated crossness. Cross, too, she was at times, when the nervous irritability

occasioned by her disease became past endurance. Miss Jessie bore with her at these times, even more

patiently than she did with the bitter selfupbraidings by which they were invariably succeeded. Miss Brown

used to accuse herself, not merely of hasty and irritable temper, but also of being the cause why her father

and sister were obliged to pinch, in order to allow her the small luxuries which were necessaries in her

condition. She would so fain have made sacrifices for them, and have lightened their cares, that the original

generosity of her disposition added acerbity to her temper. All this was borne by Miss Jessie and her father

with more than placidity with absolute tenderness. I forgave Miss Jessie her singing out of tune, and her

juvenility of dress, when I saw her at home. I came to perceive that Captain Brown's dark Brutus wig and

padded coat (alas! too often threadbare) were remnants of the military smartness of his youth, which he now

wore unconsciously. He was a man of infinite resources, gained in his barrack experience. As he confessed,

no one could black his boots to please him except himself; but, indeed, he was not above saving the little

maidservant's labours in every way knowing, most likely, that his daughter's illness made the place a hard

He endeavoured to make peace with Miss Jenkyns soon after the memorable dispute I have named, by a

present of a wooden fire shovel (his own making), having heard her say how much the grating of an iron

one annoyed her. She received the present with cool gratitude, and thanked him formally. When he was gone,

she bade me put it away in the lumberroom; feeling, probably, that no present from a man who preferred Mr

Such was the state of things when I left Cranford and went to Drumble. I had, however, several

correspondents, who kept me AU FAIT as to the proceedings of the dear little town. There was Miss Pole,

who was becoming as much absorbed in crochet as she had been once in knitting, and the burden of whose

letter was something like, "But don't you forget the white worsted at Flint's" of the old song; for at the end of

every sentence of news came a fresh direction as to some crochet commission which I was to execute for her.

Miss Matilda Jenkyns (who did not mind being called Miss Matty, when Miss Jenkyns was not by) wrote

nice, kind, rambling letters, now and then venturing into an opinion of her own; but suddenly pulling herself

up, and either begging me not to name what she had said, as Deborah thought differently, and SHE knew, or

else putting in a postscript to the effect that, since writing the above, she had been talking over the subject

with Deborah, and was quite convinced that, etc. (here probably followed a recantation of every opinion

she had given in the letter). Then came Miss Jenkyns Deborah, as she liked Miss Matty to call her, her

father having once said that the Hebrew name ought to be so pronounced. I secretly think she took the

Hebrew prophetess for a model in character; and, indeed, she was not unlike the stern prophetess in some

ways, making allowance, of course, for modern customs and difference in dress. Miss Jenkyns wore a cravat,

and a little bonnet like a jockeycap, and altogether had the appearance of a strongminded woman; although

she would have despised the modern idea of women being equal to men. Equal, indeed! she knew they were

superior. But to return to her letters. Everything in them was stately and grand like herself. I have been

looking them over (dear Miss Jenkyns, how I honoured her!) and I will give an extract, more especially

"The Honourable Mrs Jamieson has only just quitted me; and, in the course of conversation, she

communicated to me the intelligence that she had yesterday received a call from her revered husband's

quondam friend, Lord Mauleverer. You will not easily conjecture what brought his lordship within the

precincts of our little town. It was to see Captain Brown, with whom, it appears, his lordship was acquainted

in the 'plumed wars,' and who had the privilege of averting destruction from his lordship's head when some

great peril was impending over it, off the misnomered Cape of Good Hope. You know our friend the

Honourable Mrs Jamieson's deficiency in the spirit of innocent curiosity, and you will therefore not be so

much surprised when I tell you she was quite unable to disclose to me the exact nature of the peril in

question. I was anxious, I confess, to ascertain in what manner Captain Brown, with his limited

establishment, could receive so distinguished a guest; and I discovered that his lordship retired to rest, and, let

us hope, to refreshing slumbers, at the Angel Hotel; but shared the Brunonian meals during the two days that

he honoured Cranford with his august presence. Mrs Johnson, our civil butcher's wife, informs me that Miss

Jessie purchased a leg of lamb; but, besides this, I can hear of no preparation whatever to give a suitable

reception to so distinguished a visitor. Perhaps they entertained him with 'the feast of reason and the flow of

soul'; and to us, who are acquainted with Captain Brown's sad want of relish for 'the pure wells of English

undefiled,' it may be matter for congratulation that he has had the opportunity of improving his taste by

holding converse with an elegant and refined member of the British aristocracy. But from some mundane

Miss Pole and Miss Matty wrote to me by the same post. Such a piece of news as Lord Mauleverer's visit was

not to be lost on the Cranford letterwriters: they made the most of it. Miss Matty humbly apologised for

writing at the same time as her sister, who was so much more capable than she to describe the honour done to

Cranford; but in spite of a little bad spelling, Miss Matty's account gave me the best idea of the commotion

occasioned by his lordship's visit, after it had occurred; for, except the people at the Angel, the Browns, Mrs

Jamieson, and a little lad his lordship had sworn at for driving a dirty hoop against the aristocratic legs, I

My next visit to Cranford was in the summer. There had been neither births, deaths, nor marriages since I was

there last. Everybody lived in the same house, and wore pretty nearly the same wellpreserved,

oldfashioned clothes. The greatest event was, that Miss Jenkyns had purchased a new carpet for the

drawingroom. Oh, the busy work Miss Matty and I had in chasing the sunbeams, as they fell in an afternoon

right down on this carpet through the blindless window! We spread newspapers over the places and sat down

to our book or our work; and, lo! in a quarter of an hour the sun had moved, and was blazing away on a fresh

spot; and down again we went on our knees to alter the position of the newspapers. We were very busy, too,

one whole morning, before Miss Jenkyns gave her party, in following her directions, and in cutting out and

stitching together pieces of newspaper so as to form little paths to every chair set for the expected visitors,

lest their shoes might dirty or defile the purity of the carpet. Do you make paper paths for every guest to walk

Captain Brown and Miss Jenkyns were not very cordial to each other. The literary dispute, of which I had

seen the beginning, was a "raw," the slightest touch on which made them wince. It was the only difference of

opinion they had ever had; but that difference was enough. Miss Jenkyns could not refrain from talking at

Captain Brown; and, though he did not reply, he drummed with his fingers, which action she felt and resented

as very disparaging to Dr Johnson. He was rather ostentatious in his preference of the writings of Mr Boz;

would walk through the streets so absorbed in them that he all but ran against Miss Jenkyns; and though his

apologies were earnest and sincere, and though he did not, in fact, do more than startle her and himself, she

owned to me she had rather he had knocked her down, if he had only been reading a higher style of literature.

The poor, brave Captain! he looked older, and more worn, and his clothes were very threadbare. But he

seemed as bright and cheerful as ever, unless he was asked about his daughter's health.

"She suffers a great deal, and she must suffer more: we do what we can to alleviate her pain; God's will be

done!" He took off his hat at these last words. I found, from Miss Matty, that everything had been done, in

fact. A medical man, of high repute in that country neighbourhood, had been sent for, and every injunction he

had given was attended to, regardless of expense. Miss Matty was sure they denied themselves many things

in order to make the invalid comfortable; but they never spoke about it; and as for Miss Jessie! "I really

think she's an angel," said poor Miss Matty, quite overcome. "To see her way of bearing with Miss Brown's

crossness, and the bright face she puts on after she's been sitting up a whole night and scolded above half of

it, is quite beautiful. Yet she looks as neat and as ready to welcome the Captain at breakfasttime as if she

had been asleep in the Queen's bed all night. My dear! you could never laugh at her prim little curls or her

pink bows again if you saw her as I have done." I could only feel very penitent, and greet Miss Jessie with

double respect when I met her next. She looked faded and pinched; and her lips began to quiver, as if she was

very weak, when she spoke of her sister. But she brightened, and sent back the tears that were glittering in her

"But, to be sure, what a town Cranford is for kindness! I don't suppose any one has a better dinner than usual

cooked but the best part of all comes in a little covered basin for my sister. The poor people will leave their

earliest vegetables at our door for her. They speak short and gruff, as if they were ashamed of it: but I am sure

it often goes to my heart to see their thoughtfulness." The tears now came back and overflowed; but after a

minute or two she began to scold herself, and ended by going away the same cheerful Miss Jessie as ever.

"But why does not this Lord Mauleverer do something for the man who saved his life?" said I.

"Why, you see, unless Captain Brown has some reason for it, he never speaks about being poor; and he

walked along by his lordship looking as happy and cheerful as a prince; and as they never called attention to

their dinner by apologies, and as Miss Brown was better that day, and all seemed bright, I daresay his

lordship never knew how much care there was in the background. He did send game in the winter pretty

I had often occasion to notice the use that was made of fragments and small opportunities in Cranford; the

roseleaves that were gathered ere they fell to make into a potpourri for someone who had no garden; the

little bundles of lavender flowers sent to strew the drawers of some towndweller, or to burn in the chamber

of some invalid. Things that many would despise, and actions which it seemed scarcely worth while to

perform, were all attended to in Cranford. Miss Jenkyns stuck an apple full of cloves, to be heated and smell

pleasantly in Miss Brown's room; and as she put in each clove she uttered a Johnsonian sentence. Indeed, she

never could think of the Browns without talking Johnson; and, as they were seldom absent from her thoughts

Captain Brown called one day to thank Mist Jenkyns for many little kindnesses, which I did not know until

then that she had rendered. He had suddenly become like an old man; his deep bass voice had a quavering in

it, his eyes looked dim, and the lines on his face were deep. He did not could not speak cheerfully of his

daughter's state, but he talked with manly, pious resignation, and not much. Twice over he said, "What Jessie

has been to us, God only knows!" and after the second time, he got up hastily, shook hands all round without

That afternoon we perceived little groups in the street, all listening with faces aghast to some tale or other.

Miss Jenkyns wondered what could be the matter for some time before she took the undignified step of

Jenny came back with a white face of terror. "Oh, ma'am! Oh, Miss Jenkyns, ma'am! Captain Brown is killed

by them nasty cruel railroads!" and she burst into tears. She, along with many others, had experienced the

"How? where where? Good God! Jenny, don't waste time in crying, but tell us something." Miss Matty

rushed out into the street at once, and collared the man who was telling the tale.

"Come in come to my sister at once, Miss Jenkyns, the rector's daughter. Oh, man, man! say it is not true,"

she cried, as she brought the affrighted carter, sleeking down his hair, into the drawingroom, where he stood

"Please, mum, it is true. I seed it myself," and he shuddered at the recollection. "The Captain was areading

some new book as he was deep in, awaiting for the down train; and there was a little lass as wanted to come

to its mammy, and gave its sister the slip, and came toddling across the line. And he looked up sudden, at the

sound of the train coming, and seed the child, and he darted on the line and cotched it up, and his foot

slipped, and the train came over him in no time. O Lord, Lord! Mum, it's quite true, and they've come over to

tell his daughters. The child's safe, though, with only a bang on its shoulder as he threw it to its mammy. Poor

Captain would be glad of that, mum, wouldn't he? God bless him!" The great rough carter puckered up his

manly face, and turned away to hide his tears. I turned to Miss Jenkyns. She looked very ill, as if she were

"Matilda, bring me my bonnet. I must go to those girls. God pardon me, if ever I have spoken

Miss Jenkyns arrayed herself to go out, telling Miss Matilda to give the man a glass of wine. While she was

away, Miss Matty and I huddled over the fire, talking in a low and awestruck voice. I know we cried quietly

Miss Jenkyns came home in a silent mood, and we durst not ask her many questions. She told us that Miss

Jessie had fainted, and that she and Miss Pole had had some difficulty in bringing her round; but that, as soon

"Mr Hoggins says she cannot live many days, and she shall be spared this shock," said Miss Jessie, shivering

"But how can you manage, my dear?" asked Miss Jenkyns; "you cannot bear up, she must see your tears."

"God will help me I will not give way she was asleep when the news came; she may be asleep yet. She

would be so utterly miserable, not merely at my father's death, but to think of what would become of me; she

is so good to me." She looked up earnestly in their faces with her soft true eyes, and Miss Pole told Miss

Jenkyns afterwards she could hardly bear it, knowing, as she did, how Miss Brown treated her sister.

However, it was settled according to Miss Jessie's wish. Miss Brown was to be told her father had been

summoned to take a short journey on railway business. They had managed it in some way Miss Jenkyns

could not exactly say how. Miss Pole was to stop with Miss Jessie. Mrs Jamieson had sent to inquire. And

this was all we heard that night; and a sorrowful night it was. The next day a full account of the fatal accident

was in the county paper which Miss Jenkyns took in. Her eyes were very weak, she said, and she asked me to

read it. When I came to the "gallant gentleman was deeply engaged in the perusal of a number of 'Pickwick,'

which he had just received," Miss Jenkyns shook her head long and solemnly, and then sighed out, "Poor,

The corpse was to be taken from the station to the parish church, there to be interred. Miss Jessie had set her

heart on following it to the grave; and no dissuasives could alter her resolve. Her restraint upon herself made

her almost obstinate; she resisted all Miss Pole's entreaties and Miss Jenkyns' advice. At last Miss Jenkyns

gave up the point; and after a silence, which I feared portended some deep displeasure against Miss Jessie,

"It is not fit for you to go alone. It would be against both propriety and humanity were I to allow it."

Miss Jessie seemed as if she did not half like this arrangement; but her obstinacy, if she had any, had been

exhausted in her determination to go to the interment. She longed, poor thing, I have no doubt, to cry alone

over the grave of the dear father to whom she had been all in all, and to give way, for one little half hour,

uninterrupted by sympathy and unobserved by friendship. But it was not to be. That afternoon Miss Jenkyns

sent out for a yard of black crape, and employed herself busily in trimming the little black silk bonnet I have

spoken about. When it was finished she put it on, and looked at us for approbation admiration she despised.

I was full of sorrow, but, by one of those whimsical thoughts which come unbidden into our heads, in times

of deepest grief, I no sooner saw the bonnet than I was reminded of a helmet; and in that hybrid bonnet, half

helmet, half jockeycap, did Miss Jenkyns attend Captain Brown's funeral, and, I believe, supported Miss

Jessie with a tender, indulgent firmness which was invaluable, allowing her to weep her passionate fill before

Miss Pole, Miss Matty, and I, meanwhile attended to Miss Brown: and hard work we found it to relieve her

querulous and neverending complaints. But if we were so weary and dispirited, what must Miss Jessie have

been! Yet she came back almost calm as if she had gained a new strength. She put off her mourning dress,

and came in, looking pale and gentle, thanking us each with a soft long pressure of the hand. She could even

smile a faint, sweet, wintry smile as if to reassure us of her power to endure; but her look made our eyes

It was settled that Miss Pole was to remain with her all the watching livelong night; and that Miss Matty and I

were to return in the morning to relieve them, and give Miss Jessie the opportunity for a few hours of sleep.

But when the morning came, Miss Jenkyns appeared at the breakfasttable, equipped in her helmetbonnet,

and ordered Miss Matty to stay at home, as she meant to go and help to nurse. She was evidently in a state of

great friendly excitement, which she showed by eating her breakfast standing, and scolding the household all

No nursing no energetic strongminded woman could help Miss Brown now. There was that in the room as

we entered which was stronger than us all, and made us shrink into solemn awestruck helplessness. Miss

Brown was dying. We hardly knew her voice, it was so devoid of the complaining tone we had always

associated with it. Miss Jessie told me afterwards that it, and her face too, were just what they had been

formerly, when her mother's death left her the young anxious head of the family, of whom only Miss Jessie

She was conscious of her sister's presence, though not, I think, of ours. We stood a little behind the curtain:

Miss Jessie knelt with her face near her sister's, in order to catch the last soft awful whispers.

"Oh, Jessie! Jessie! How selfish I have been! God forgive me for letting you sacrifice yourself for me as you

did! I have so loved you and yet I have thought only of myself. God forgive me!"

"And my father, my dear, dear father! I will not complain now, if God will give me strength to be patient.

But, oh, Jessie! tell my father how I longed and yearned to see him at last, and to ask his forgiveness. He can

never know now how I loved him oh! if I might but tell him, before I die! What a life of sorrow his has

A light came into Miss Jessie's face. "Would it comfort you, dearest, to think that he does know? would it

comfort you, love, to know that his cares, his sorrows" Her voice quivered, but she steadied it into calmness

"Mary! he has gone before you to the place where the weary are at rest. He knows now how you loved

A strange look, which was not distress, came over Miss Brown's face. She did not speak for come time, but

then we saw her lips form the words, rather than heard the sound "Father, mother, Harry, Archy;" then, as

if it were a new idea throwing a filmy shadow over her darkened mind "But you will be alone, Jessie!"

Miss Jessie had been feeling this all during the silence, I think; for the tears rolled down her cheeks like rain,

at these words, and she could not answer at first. Then she put her hands together tight, and lifted them up,

In a few moments more Miss Brown lay calm and still never to sorrow or murmur more.

After this second funeral, Miss Jenkyns insisted that Miss Jessie should come to stay with her rather than go

back to the desolate house, which, in fact, we learned from Miss Jessie, must now be given up, as she had not

wherewithal to maintain it. She had something above twenty pounds a year, besides the interest of the money

for which the furniture would sell; but she could not live upon that: and so we talked over her qualifications

"I can sew neatly," said she, "and I like nursing. I think, too, I could manage a house, if any one would try me

as housekeeper; or I would go into a shop as saleswoman, if they would have patience with me at first."

Miss Jenkyns declared, in an angry voice, that she should do no such thing; and talked to herself about "some

people having no idea of their rank as a captain's daughter," nearly an hour afterwards, when she brought

Miss Jessie up a basin of delicatelymade arrowroot, and stood over her like a dragoon until the last spoonful

was finished: then she disappeared. Miss Jessie began to tell me some more of the plans which had suggested

themselves to her, and insensibly fell into talking of the days that were past and gone, and interested me so

much I neither knew nor heeded how time passed. We were both startled when Miss Jenkyns reappeared, and

caught us crying. I was afraid lest she would be displeased, as she often said that crying hindered digestion,

and I knew she wanted Miss Jessie to get strong; but, instead, she looked queer and excited, and fidgeted

"I have been so much startled no, I've not been at all startled don't mind me, my dear Miss Jessie I've

been very much surprised in fact, I've had a caller, whom you knew once, my dear Miss Jessie"

Miss Jessie went very white, then flushed scarlet, and looked eagerly at Miss Jenkyns.

"This is his card," said Miss Jenkyns, giving it to Miss Jessie; and while her head was bent over it, Miss

Jenkyns went through a series of winks and odd faces to me, and formed her lips into a long sentence, of

"Oh, yes! certainly!" said Miss Jessie, as much as to say, this is your house, you may show any visitor where

you like. She took up some knitting of Miss Matty's and began to be very busy, though I could see how she

Miss Jenkyns rang the bell, and told the servant who answered it to show Major Gordon upstairs; and,

presently, in walked a tall, fine, franklooking man of forty or upwards. He shook hands with Miss Jessie;

but he could not see her eyes, she kept them so fixed on the ground. Miss Jenkyns asked me if I would come

and help her to tie up the preserves in the storeroom; and though Miss Jessie plucked at my gown, and even

looked up at me with begging eye, I durst not refuse to go where Miss Jenkyns asked. Instead of tying up

preserves in the storeroom, however, we went to talk in the diningroom; and there Miss Jenkyns told me

what Major Gordon had told her; how he had served in the same regiment with Captain Brown, and had

become acquainted with Miss Jessie, then a sweet looking, blooming girl of eighteen; how the acquaintance

had grown into love on his part, though it had been some years before he had spoken; how, on becoming

possessed, through the will of an uncle, of a good estate in Scotland, he had offered and been refused, though

with so much agitation and evident distress that he was sure she was not indifferent to him; and how he had

discovered that the obstacle was the fell disease which was, even then, too surely threatening her sister. She

had mentioned that the surgeons foretold intense suffering; and there was no one but herself to nurse her poor

Mary, or cheer and comfort her father during the time of illness. They had had long discussions; and on her

refusal to pledge herself to him as his wife when all should be over, he had grown angry, and broken off

entirely, and gone abroad, believing that she was a coldhearted person whom he would do well to forget.

He had been travelling in the East, and was on his return home when, at Rome, he saw the account of Captain

Just then Miss Matty, who had been out all the morning, and had only lately returned to the house, burst in

"Oh, goodness me!" she said. "Deborah, there's a gentleman sitting in the drawingroom with his arm round

"The most proper place in the world for his arm to be in. Go away, Matilda, and mind your own business."

This from her sister, who had hitherto been a model of feminine decorum, was a blow for poor Miss Matty,

The last time I ever saw poor Miss Jenkyns was many years after this. Mrs Gordon had kept up a warm and

affectionate intercourse with all at Cranford. Miss Jenkyns, Miss Matty, and Miss Pole had all been to visit

her, and returned with wonderful accounts of her house, her husband, her dress, and her looks. For, with

happiness, something of her early bloom returned; she had been a year or two younger than we had taken her

for. Her eyes were always lovely, and, as Mrs Gordon, her dimples were not out of place. At the time to

which I have referred, when I last saw Miss Jenkyns, that lady was old and feeble, and had lost something of

her strong mind. Little Flora Gordon was staying with the Misses Jenkyns, and when I came in she was

reading aloud to Miss Jenkyns, who lay feeble and changed on the sofa. Flora put down the RAMBLER

"Ah!" said Miss Jenkyns, "you find me changed, my dear. If can't see as I used to do. I Flora were not here to

read to me, I hardly know how I should get through the day. Did you ever read the RAMBLER? It's a

wonderful book wonderful! and the most improving reading for Flora" (which I daresay it would have

been, if she could have read half the words without spelling, and could have understood the meaning of a

third), "better than that strange old book, with the queer name, poor Captain Brown was killed for reading

that book by Mr Boz, you know 'Old Poz'; when I was a girl but that's a long time ago I acted Lucy in

'Old Poz.'" She babbled on long enough for Flora to get a good long spell at the "Christmas Carol," which

I THOUGHT that probably my connection with Cranford would cease after Miss Jenkyns's death; at least,

that it would have to be kept up by correspondence, which bears much the same relation to personal

intercourse that the books of dried plants I sometimes see ("Hortus Siccus," I think they call the thing) do to

the living and fresh flowers in the lines and meadows. I was pleasantly surprised, therefore, by receiving a

letter from Miss Pole (who had always come in for a supplementary week after my annual visit to Miss

Jenkyns) proposing that I should go and stay with her; and then, in a couple of days after my acceptance,

came a note from Miss Matty, in which, in a rather circuitous and very humble manner, she told me how

much pleasure I should confer if I could spend a week or two with her, either before or after I had been at

Miss Pole's; "for," she said, "since my dear sister's death I am well aware I have no attractions to offer; it is

Of course I promised to come to dear Miss Matty as soon as I had ended my visit to Miss Pole; and the day

after my arrival at Cranford I went to see her, much wondering what the house would be like without Miss

Jenkyns, and rather dreading the changed aspect of things. Miss Matty began to cry as soon as she saw me.

She was evidently nervous from having anticipated my call. I comforted her as well as I could; and I found

the best consolation I could give was the honest praise that came from my heart as I spoke of the deceased.

Miss Matty slowly shook her head over each virtue as it was named and attributed to her sister; and at last she

could not restrain the tears which had long been silently flowing, but hid her face behind her handkerchief

"Dear Miss Matty," said I, taking her hand for indeed I did not know in what way to tell her how sorry I

"My dear, I'd rather you did not call me Matty. She did not like it; but I did many a thing she did not like, I'm

I promised faithfully, and began to practise the new name with Miss Pole that very day; and, by degrees, Miss

Matilda's feeling on the subject was known through Cranford, and we all tried to drop the more familiar

My visit to Miss Pole was very quiet. Miss Jenkyns had so long taken the lead in Cranford that now she was

gone, they hardly knew how to give a party. The Honourable Mrs Jamieson, to whom Miss Jenkyns herself

had always yielded the post of honour, was fat and inert, and very much at the mercy of her old servants. If

they chose that she should give a party, they reminded her of the necessity for so doing: if not, she let it alone.

There was all the more time for me to hear oldworld stories from Miss Pole, while she sat knitting, and I

making my father's shirts. I always took a quantity of plain sewing to Cranford; for, as we did not read much,

or walk much, I found it a capital time to get through my work. One of Miss Pole's stories related to a shadow

Presently, the time arrived when I was to remove to Miss Matilda's house. I found her timid and anxious

about the arrangements for my comfort. Many a time, while I was unpacking, did she come backwards and

forwards to stir the fire which burned all the worse for being so frequently poked.

"Have you drawers enough, dear?" asked she. "I don't know exactly how my sister used to arrange them. She

had capital methods. I am sure she would have trained a servant in a week to make a better fire than this, and

This subject of servants was a standing grievance, and I could not wonder much at it; for if gentlemen were

scarce, and almost unheard of in the "genteel society" of Cranford, they or their counterparts handsome

young men abounded in the lower classes. The pretty neat servantmaids had their choice of desirable

"followers"; and their mistresses, without having the sort of mysterious dread of men and matrimony that

Miss Matilda had, might well feel a little anxious lest the heads of their comely maids should be turned by the

joiner, or the butcher, or the gardener, who were obliged, by their callings, to come to the house, and who, as

illluck would have it, were generally handsome and unmarried. Fanny's lovers, if she had any and Miss

Matilda suspected her of so many flirtations that, if she had not been very pretty, I should have doubted her

having one were a constant anxiety to her mistress. She was forbidden, by the articles of her engagement, to

have "followers"; and though she had answered, innocently enough, doubling up the hem of her apron as she

spoke, "Please, ma'am, I never had more than one at a time," Miss Matty prohibited that one. But a vision of a

man seemed to haunt the kitchen. Fanny assured me that it was all fancy, or else I should have said myself

that I had seen a man's coattails whisk into the scullery once, when I went on an errand into the storeroom

at night; and another evening, when, our watches having stopped, I went to look at the clock, there was a very

odd appearance, singularly like a young man squeezed up between the clock and the back of the open

kitchendoor: and I thought Fanny snatched up the candle very hastily, so as to throw the shadow on the

clock face, while she very positively told me the time halfanhour too early, as we found out afterwards by

the church clock. But I did not add to Miss Matty's anxieties by naming my suspicions, especially as Fanny

said to me, the next day, that it was such a queer kitchen for having odd shadows about it, she really was

almost afraid to stay; "for you know, miss," she added, "I don't see a creature from six o'clock tea, till Missus

However, it so fell out that Fanny had to leave and Miss Matilda begged me to stay and "settle her" with the

new maid; to which I consented, after I had heard from my father that he did not want me at home. The new

servant was a rough, honestlooking, country girl, who had only lived in a farm place before; but I liked her

looks when she came to be hired; and I promised Miss Matilda to put her in the ways of the house. The said

ways were religiously such as Miss Matilda thought her sister would approve. Many a domestic rule and

regulation had been a subject of plaintive whispered murmur to me during Miss Jenkyns's life; but now that

she was gone, I do not think that even I, who was a favourite, durst have suggested an alteration. To give an

instance: we constantly adhered to the forms which were observed, at mealtimes, in "my father, the rector's

house." Accordingly, we had always wine and dessert; but the decanters were only filled when there was a

party, and what remained was seldom touched, though we had two wine glasses apiece every day after

dinner, until the next festive occasion arrived, when the state of the remainder wine was examined into in a

family council. The dregs were often given to the poor: but occasionally, when a good deal had been left at

the last party (five months ago, it might be), it was added to some of a fresh bottle, brought up from the

cellar. I fancy poor Captain Brown did not much like wine, for I noticed he never finished his first glass, and

most military men take several. Then, as to our dessert, Miss Jenkyns used to gather currants and

gooseberries for it herself, which I sometimes thought would have tasted better fresh from the trees; but then,

as Miss Jenkyns observed, there would have been nothing for dessert in summertime. As it was, we felt very

genteel with our two glasses apiece, and a dish of gooseberries at the top, of currants and biscuits at the sides,

and two decanters at the bottom. When oranges came in, a curious proceeding was gone through. Miss

Jenkyns did not like to cut the fruit; for, as she observed, the juice all ran out nobody knew where; sucking

(only I think she used some more recondite word) was in fact the only way of enjoying oranges; but then

there was the unpleasant association with a ceremony frequently gone through by little babies; and so, after

dessert, in orange season, Miss Jenkyns and Miss Matty used to rise up, possess themselves each of an orange

in silence, and withdraw to the privacy of their own rooms to indulge in sucking oranges.

I had once or twice tried, on such occasions, to prevail on Miss Matty to stay, and had succeeded in her

sister's lifetime. I held up a screen, and did not look, and, as she said, she tried not to make the noise very

offensive; but now that she was left alone, she seemed quite horrified when I begged her to remain with me in

the warm diningparlour, and enjoy her orange as she liked best. And so it was in everything. Miss Jenkyns's

rules were made more stringent than ever, because the framer of them was gone where there could be no

appeal. In all things else Miss Matilda was meek and undecided to a fault. I have heard Fanny turn her round

twenty times in a morning about dinner, just as the little hussy chose; and I sometimes fancied she worked on

Miss Matilda's weakness in order to bewilder her, and to make her feel more in the power of her clever

servant. I determined that I would not leave her till I had seen what sort of a person Martha was; and, if I

found her trustworthy, I would tell her not to trouble her mistress with every little decision.

Martha was blunt and plainspoken to a fault; otherwise she was a brisk, wellmeaning, but very ignorant

girl. She had not been with us a week before Miss Matilda and I were astounded one morning by the receipt

of a letter from a cousin of hers, who had been twenty or thirty years in India, and who had lately, as we had

seen by the "Army List," returned to England, bringing with him an invalid wife who had never been

introduced to her English relations. Major Jenkyns wrote to propose that he and his wife should spend a night

at Cranford, on his way to Scotland at the inn, if it did not suit Miss Matilda to receive them into her house;

in which case they should hope to be with her as much as possible during the day. Of course it MUST suit

her, as she said; for all Cranford knew that she had her sister's bedroom at liberty; but I am sure she wished

"Oh! how must I manage?" asked she helplessly. "If Deborah had been alive she would have known what to

do with a gentleman visitor. Must I put razors in his dressingroom? Dear! dear! and I've got none. Deborah

would have had them. And slippers, and coatbrushes?" I suggested that probably he would bring all these

things with him. "And after dinner, how am I to know when to get up and leave him to his wine? Deborah

would have done it so well; she would have been quite in her element. Will he want coffee, do you think?" I

undertook the management of the coffee, and told her I would instruct Martha in the art of waiting in which

it must be owned she was terribly deficient and that I had no doubt Major and Mrs Jenkyns would

understand the quiet mode in which a lady lived by herself in a country town. But she was sadly fluttered. I

made her empty her decanters and bring up two fresh bottles of wine. I wished I could have prevented her

from being present at my instructions to Martha, for she frequently cut in with some fresh direction,

"Hand the vegetables round," said I (foolishly, I see now for it was aiming at more than we could

accomplish with quietness and simplicity); and then, seeing her look bewildered, I added, "take the

"And mind you go first to the ladies," put in Miss Matilda. "Always go to the ladies before gentlemen when

We felt very uncomfortable and shocked at this speech of Martha's, yet I don't think she meant any harm;

and, on the whole, she attended very well to our directions, except that she "nudged" the Major when he did

not help himself as soon as she expected to the potatoes, while she was handing them round.

The major and his wife were quiet unpretending people enough when they did come; languid, as all East

Indians are, I suppose. We were rather dismayed at their bringing two servants with them, a Hindoo

bodyservant for the Major, and a steady elderly maid for his wife; but they slept at the inn, and took off a

good deal of the responsibility by attending carefully to their master's and mistress's comfort. Martha, to be

sure, had never ended her staring at the East Indian's white turban and brown complexion, and I saw that

Miss Matilda shrunk away from him a little as he waited at dinner. Indeed, she asked me, when they were

gone, if he did not remind me of Blue Beard? On the whole, the visit was most satisfactory, and is a subject

of conversation even now with Miss Matilda; at the time it greatly excited Cranford, and even stirred up the

apathetic and Honourable Mrs Jamieson to some expression of interest, when I went to call and thank her for

the kind answers she had vouchsafed to Miss Matilda's inquiries as to the arrangement of a gentleman's

dressingroom answers which I must confess she had given in the wearied manner of the Scandinavian

It seems that Miss Pole had a cousin, once or twice removed, who had offered to Miss Matty long ago. Now

this cousin lived four or five miles from Cranford on his own estate; but his property was not large enough to

entitle him to rank higher than a yeoman; or rather, with something of the "pride which apes humility," he

had refused to push himself on, as so many of his class had done, into the ranks of the squires. He would not

allow himself to be called Thomas Holbrook, ESQ.; he even sent back letters with this address, telling the

postmistress at Cranford that his name was MR Thomas Holbrook, yeoman. He rejected all domestic

innovations; he would have the house door stand open in summer and shut in winter, without knocker or bell

to summon a servant. The closed fist or the knob of a stick did this office for him if he found the door locked.

He despised every refinement which had not its root deep down in humanity. If people were not ill, he saw no

necessity for moderating his voice. He spoke the dialect of the country in perfection, and constantly used it in

conversation; although Miss Pole (who gave me these particulars) added, that he read aloud more beautifully

"Oh, I don't know. She was willing enough, I think; but you know Cousin Thomas would not have been

"No; but they did not like Miss Matty to marry below her rank. You know she was the rector's daughter, and

somehow they are related to Sir Peter Arley: Miss Jenkyns thought a deal of that."

"Nay, now, I don't know anything more than that he offered and was refused. Miss Matty might not like him

"No, I think not. You see Woodley, Cousin Thomas's house, lies halfway between Cranford and Misselton;

and I know he made Misselton his markettown very soon after he had offered to Miss Matty; and I don't

think he has been into Cranford above once or twice since once, when I was walking with Miss Matty, in

High Street, and suddenly she darted from me, and went up Shire Lane. A few minutes after I was startled by

"He must be about seventy, I think, my dear," said Miss Pole, blowing up my castle, as if by gunpowder,

Very soon after at least during my long visit to Miss Matilda I had the opportunity of seeing Mr

Holbrook; seeing, too, his first encounter with his former love, after thirty or forty years' separation. I was

helping to decide whether any of the new assortment of coloured silks which they had just received at the

shop would do to match a grey and black mousselinedelaine that wanted a new breadth, when a tall, thin,

Don Quixotelooking old man came into the shop for some woollen gloves. I had never seen the person (who

was rather striking) before, and I watched him rather attentively while Miss Matty listened to the shopman.

The stranger wore a blue coat with brass buttons, drab breeches, and gaiters, and drummed with his fingers on

the counter until he was attended to. When he answered the shopboy's question, "What can I have the

pleasure of showing you today, sir?" I saw Miss Matilda start, and then suddenly sit down; and instantly I

guessed who it was. She had made some inquiry which had to be carried round to the other shopman.

"Miss Jenkyns wants the black sarsenet twoandtwopence the yard"; and Mr Holbrook had caught the

"Matty Miss Matilda Miss Jenkyns! God bless my soul! I should not have known you. How are you? how

are you?" He kept shaking her hand in a way which proved the warmth of his friendship; but he repeated so

often, as if to himself, "I should not have known you!" that any sentimental romance which I might be

However, he kept talking to us all the time we were in the shop; and then waving the shopman with the

unpurchased gloves on one side, with "Another time, sir! another time!" he walked home with us. I am happy

to say my client, Miss Matilda, also left the shop in an equally bewildered state, not having purchased either

green or red silk. Mr Holbrook was evidently full with honest loud spoken joy at meeting his old love again;

he touched on the changes that had taken place; he even spoke of Miss Jenkyns as "Your poor sister! Well,

well! we have all our faults"; and bade us goodbye with many a hope that he should soon see Miss Matty

again. She went straight to her room, and never came back till our early tea time, when I thought she looked

A FEW days after, a note came from Mr Holbrook, asking us impartially asking both of us in a formal,

oldfashioned style, to spend a day at his house a long June day for it was June now. He named that he

had also invited his cousin, Miss Pole; so that we might join in a fly, which could be put up at his house.

I expected Miss Matty to jump at this invitation; but, no! Miss Pole and I had the greatest difficulty in

persuading her to go. She thought it was improper; and was even half annoyed when we utterly ignored the

idea of any impropriety in her going with two other ladies to see her old lover. Then came a more serious

difficulty. She did not think Deborah would have liked her to go. This took us half a day's good hard talking

to get over; but, at the first sentence of relenting, I seized the opportunity, and wrote and despatched an

acceptance in her name fixing day and hour, that all might be decided and done with.

The next morning she asked me if I would go down to the shop with her; and there, after much hesitation, we

chose out three caps to be sent home and tried on, that the most becoming might be selected to take with us

She was in a state of silent agitation all the way to Woodley. She had evidently never been there before; and,

although she little dreamt I knew anything of her early story, I could perceive she was in a tremor at the

thought of seeing the place which might have been her home, and round which it is probable that many of her

innocent girlish imaginations had clustered. It was a long drive there, through paved jolting lanes. Miss

Matilda sat bolt upright, and looked wistfully out of the windows as we drew near the end of our journey. The

aspect of the country was quiet and pastoral. Woodley stood among fields; and there was an oldfashioned

garden where roses and currantbushes touched each other, and where the feathery asparagus formed a pretty

background to the pinks and gillyflowers; there was no drive up to the door. We got out at a little gate, and

"My cousin might make a drive, I think," said Miss Pole, who was afraid of earache, and had only her cap

"I think it is very pretty," said Miss Matty, with a soft plaintiveness in her voice, and almost in a whisper, for

just then Mr Holbrook appeared at the door, rubbing his hands in very effervescence of hospitality. He looked

more like my idea of Don Quixote than ever, and yet the likeness was only external. His respectable

housekeeper stood modestly at the door to bid us welcome; and, while she led the elder ladies upstairs to a

bedroom, I begged to look about the garden. My request evidently pleased the old gentleman, who took me

all round the place and showed me his sixandtwenty cows, named after the different letters of the alphabet.

As we went along, he surprised me occasionally by repeating apt and beautiful quotations from the poets,

ranging easily from Shakespeare and George Herbert to those of our own day. He did this as naturally as if he

were thinking aloud, and their true and beautiful words were the best expression he could find for what he

was thinking or feeling. To be sure he called Byron "my Lord Byrron," and pronounced the name of Goethe

strictly in accordance with the English sound of the letters "As Goethe says, 'Ye eververdant palaces,'"

Altogether, I never met with a man, before or since, who had spent so long a life in a secluded and not

impressive country, with everincreasing delight in the daily and yearly change of season and beauty.

When he and I went in, we found that dinner was nearly ready in the kitchen for so I suppose the room

ought to be called, as there were oak dressers and cupboards all round, all over by the side of the fireplace,

and only a small Turkey carpet in the middle of the flagfloor. The room might have been easily made into a

handsome dark oak diningparlour by removing the oven and a few other appurtenances of a kitchen, which

were evidently never used, the real cookingplace being at some distance. The room in which we were

expected to sit was a stifflyfurnished, ugly apartment; but that in which we did sit was what Mr Holbrook

called the counting house, where he paid his labourers their weekly wages at a great desk near the door. The

rest of the pretty sittingroom looking into the orchard, and all covered over with dancing treeshadows

was filled with books. They lay on the ground, they covered the walls, they strewed the table. He was

evidently half ashamed and half proud of his extravagance in this respect. They were of all kinds poetry and

wild weird tales prevailing. He evidently chose his books in accordance with his own tastes, not because such

"Ah!" he said, "we farmers ought not to have much time for reading; yet somehow one can't help it."

"Nay! if you like it," replied he; "but can you sit on these great, black leather, threecornered chairs? I like it

better than the best parlour; but I thought ladies would take that for the smarter place."

It was the smarter place, but, like most smart things, not at all pretty, or pleasant, or homelike; so, while we

were at dinner, the servantgirl dusted and scrubbed the countinghouse chairs, and we sat there all the rest

We had pudding before meat; and I thought Mr Holbrook was going to make some apology for his

"No more do I," said he. "My housekeeper WILL have these in her new fashion; or else I tell her that, when

I was a young man, we used to keep strictly to my father's rule, 'No broth, no ball; no ball, no beef'; and

always began dinner with broth. Then we had suet puddings, boiled in the broth with the beef: and then the

meat itself. If we did not sup our broth, we had no ball, which we liked a deal better; and the beef came last of

all, and only those had it who had done justice to the broth and the ball. Now folks begin with sweet things,

When the ducks and green peas came, we looked at each other in dismay; we had only twopronged,

blackhandled forks. It is true the steel was as bright as silver; but what were we to do? Miss Matty picked up

her peas, one by one, on the point of the prongs, much as Amine ate her grains of rice after her previous feast

with the Ghoul. Miss Pole sighed over her delicate young peas as she left them on one side of her plate

untasted, for they WOULD drop between the prongs. I looked at my host: the peas were going wholesale into

his capacious mouth, shovelled up by his large roundended knife. I saw, I imitated, I survived! My friends,

in spite of my precedent, could not muster up courage enough to do an ungenteel thing; and, if Mr Holbrook

had not been so heartily hungry, he would probably have seen that the good peas went away almost

After dinner, a clay pipe was brought in, and a spittoon; and, asking us to retire to another room, where he

would soon join us, if we disliked tobaccosmoke, he presented his pipe to Miss Matty, and requested her to

fill the bowl. This was a compliment to a lady in his youth; but it was rather inappropriate to propose it as an

honour to Miss Matty, who had been trained by her sister to hold smoking of every kind in utter abhorrence.

But if it was a shock to her refinement, it was also a gratification to her feelings to be thus selected; so she

"It is very pleasant dining with a bachelor," said Miss Matty softly, as we settled ourselves in the

"What a number of books he has!" said Miss Pole, looking round the room. "And how dusty they are!"

"I think it must be like one of the great Dr Johnson's rooms," said Miss Matty. "What a superior man your

"Yes!" said Miss Pole, "he's a great reader; but I am afraid he has got into very uncouth habits with living

"Oh! uncouth is too hard a word. I should call him eccentric; very clever people always are!" replied Miss

When Mr Holbrook returned, he proposed a walk in the fields; but the two elder ladies were afraid of damp,

and dirt, and had only very unbecoming calashes to put on over their caps; so they declined, and I was again

his companion in a turn which he said he was obliged to take to see after his men. He strode along, either

wholly forgetting my existence, or soothed into silence by his pipe and yet it was not silence exactly. He

walked before me with a stooping gait, his hands clasped behind him; and, as some tree or cloud, or glimpse

of distant upland pastures, struck him, he quoted poetry to himself, saying it out loud in a grand sonorous

voice, with just the emphasis that true feeling and appreciation give. We came upon an old cedar tree, which

"Capital term 'layers!' Wonderful man!" I did not know whether he was speaking to me or not; but I put in

an assenting "wonderful," although I knew nothing about it, just because I was tired of being forgotten, and of

He turned sharp round. "Ay! you may say 'wonderful.' Why, when I saw the review of his poems in

BLACKWOOD, I set off within an hour, and walked seven miles to Misselton (for the horses were not in the

"I knew you didn't. No more did I an old fool that I am! till this young man comes and tells me. Black as

ashbuds in March. And I've lived all my life in the country; more shame for me not to know. Black: they are

jetblack, madam." And he went off again, swinging along to the music of some rhyme he had got hold of.

When we came back, nothing would serve him but he must read us the poems he had been speaking of; and

Miss Pole encouraged him in his proposal, I thought, because she wished me to hear his beautiful reading, of

which she had boasted; but she afterwards said it was because she had got to a difficult part of her crochet,

and wanted to count her stitches without having to talk. Whatever he had proposed would have been right to

Miss Matty; although she did fall sound asleep within five minutes after he had begun a long poem, called

"Locksley Hall," and had a comfortable nap, unobserved, till he ended; when the cessation of his voice

wakened her up, and she said, feeling that something was expected, and that Miss Pole was counting

"Oh yes! I meant beautiful" said she, fluttered at his disapproval of her word. "It is so like that beautiful poem

of Dr Johnson's my sister used to read I forget the name of it; what was it, my dear?" turning to me.

"I don't remember what it was about, and I've quite forgotten what the name of it was; but it was written by

Dr Johnson, and was very beautiful, and very like what Mr Holbrook has just been reading."

"I don't remember it," said he reflectively. "But I don't know Dr Johnson's poems well. I must read them."

As we were getting into the fly to return, I heard Mr Holbrook say he should call on the ladies soon, and

inquire how they got home; and this evidently pleased and fluttered Miss Matty at the time he said it; but

after we had lost sight of the old house among the trees her sentiments towards the master of it were

gradually absorbed into a distressing wonder as to whether Martha had broken her word, and seized on the

opportunity of her mistress's absence to have a "follower." Martha looked good, and steady, and composed

enough, as she came to help us out; she was always careful of Miss Matty, and tonight she made use of this

"Eh! dear ma'am, to think of your going out in an evening in such a thin shawl! It's no better than muslin. At

"My age!" said Miss Matty, almost speaking crossly, for her, for she was usually gentle "My age! Why,

"Well, ma'am, I should say you were not far short of sixty: but folks' looks is often against them and I'm

"Martha, I'm not yet fiftytwo!" said Miss Matty, with grave emphasis; for probably the remembrance of her

youth had come very vividly before her this day, and she was annoyed at finding that golden time so far away

But she never spoke of any former and more intimate acquaintance with Mr Holbrook. She had probably met

with so little sympathy in her early love, that she had shut it up close in her heart; and it was only by a sort of

watching, which I could hardly avoid since Miss Pole's confidence, that I saw how faithful her poor heart had

She gave me some good reason for wearing her best cap every day, and sat near the window, in spite of her

He came. He put his open palms upon his knees, which were far apart, as he sat with his head bent down,

whistling, after we had replied to his inquiries about our safe return. Suddenly he jumped up

"Well, madam! have you any commands for Paris? I am going there in a week or two."

"Yes, madam! I've never been there, and always had a wish to go; and I think if I don't go soon, I mayn't go at

Just as he was going out of the room, he turned back, with his favourite exclamation

"God bless my soul, madam! but I nearly forgot half my errand. Here are the poems for you you admired so

much the other evening at my house." He tugged away at a parcel in his coatpocket. "Good bye, miss,"

But he had given her a book, and he had called her Matty, just as he used to do thirty years to.

"I wish he would not go to Paris," said Miss Matilda anxiously. "I don't believe frogs will agree with him; he

used to have to be very careful what he ate, which was curious in so stronglooking a young man."

Soon after this I took my leave, giving many an injunction to Martha to look after her mistress, and to let me

know if she thought that Miss Matilda was not so well; in which case I would volunteer a visit to my old

Accordingly I received a line or two from Martha every now and then; and, about November I had a note to

say her mistress was "very low and sadly off her food"; and the account made me so uneasy that, although

I received a warm welcome, in spite of the little flurry produced by my impromptu visit, for I had only been

able to give a day's notice. Miss Matilda looked miserably ill; and I prepared to comfort and cosset her.

"How long has your mistress been so poorly?" I asked, as I stood by the kitchen fire.

"Well! I think its better than a fortnight; it is, I know; it was one Tuesday, after Miss Pole had been, that she

went into this moping way. I thought she was tired, and it would go off with a night's rest; but no! she has

"You did quite right, Martha. It is a comfort to think she has so faithful a servant about her. And I hope you

"Well, ma'am, missus is very kind, and there's plenty to eat and drink, and no more work but what I can do

"Why, it seems so hard of missus not to let me have any followers; there's such lots of young fellows in the

town; and many a one has as much as offered to keep company with me; and I may never be in such a likely

place again, and it's like wasting an opportunity. Many a girl as I know would have 'em unbeknownst to

missus; but I've given my word, and I'll stick to it; or else this is just the house for missus never to be the

wiser if they did come: and it's such a capable kitchen there's such dark corners in it I'd be bound to hide

any one. I counted up last Sunday night for I'll not deny I was crying because I had to shut the door in Jem

Hearn's face, and he's a steady young man, fit for any girl; only I had given missus my word." Martha was all

but crying again; and I had little comfort to give her, for I knew, from old experience, of the horror with

which both the Miss Jenkynses looked upon "followers"; and in Miss Matty's present nervous state this dread

I went to see Miss Pole the next day, and took her completely by surprise, for she had not been to see Miss

"And now I must go back with you, my dear, for I promised to let her know how Thomas Holbrook went on;

and, I'm sorry to say, his housekeeper has sent me word today that he hasn't long to live. Poor Thomas! that

journey to Paris was quite too much for him. His housekeeper says he has hardly ever been round his fields

since, but just sits with his hands on his knees in the countinghouse, not reading or anything, but only saying

what a wonderful city Paris was! Paris has much to answer for if it's killed my cousin Thomas, for a better

"Does Miss Matilda know of his illness?" asked I a new light as to the cause of her indisposition dawning

"Dear! to be sure, yes! Has not she told you? I let her know a fortnight ago, or more, when first I heard of it.

Not at all, I thought; but I did not say anything. I felt almost guilty of having spied too curiously into that

tender heart, and I was not going to speak of its secrets hidden, Miss Matty believed, from all the world. I

ushered Miss Pole into Miss Matilda's little drawingroom, and then left them alone. But I was not surprised

when Martha came to my bedroom door, to ask me to go down to dinner alone, for that missus had one of her

bad headaches. She came into the drawingroom at teatime, but it was evidently an effort to her; and, as if

to make up for some reproachful feeling against her late sister, Miss Jenkyns, which had been troubling her

all the afternoon, and for which she now felt penitent, she kept telling me how good and how clever Deborah

was in her youth; how she used to settle what gowns they were to wear at all the parties (faint, ghostly ideas

of grim parties, far away in the distance, when Miss Matty and Miss Pole were young!); and how Deborah

and her mother had started the benefit society for the poor, and taught girls cooking and plain sewing; and

how Deborah had once danced with a lord; and how she used to visit at Sir Peter Arley's, and tried to remodel

the quiet rectory establishment on the plans of Arley Hall, where they kept thirty servants; and how she had

nursed Miss Matty through a long, long illness, of which I had never heard before, but which I now dated in

my own mind as following the dismissal of the suit of Mr Holbrook. So we talked softly and quietly of old

The next day Miss Pole brought us word that Mr Holbrook was dead. Miss Matty heard the news in silence;

in fact, from the account of the previous day, it was only what we had to expect. Miss Pole kept calling upon

us for some expression of regret, by asking if it was not sad that he was gone, and saying

"To think of that pleasant day last June, when he seemed so well! And he might have lived this dozen years if

he had not gone to that wicked Paris, where they are always having revolutions."

She paused for some demonstration on our part. I saw Miss Matty could not speak, she was trembling so

nervously; so I said what I really felt; and after a call of some duration all the time of which I have no doubt

Miss Pole thought Miss Matty received the news very calmly our visitor took her leave.

Miss Matty made a strong effort to conceal her feelings a concealment she practised even with me, for she

has never alluded to Mr Holbrook again, although the book he gave her lies with her Bible on the little table

by her bedside. She did not think I heard her when she asked the little milliner of Cranford to make her caps

"Oh! I only meant something in that style; not widows', of course, but rather like Mrs Jamieson's."

This effort at concealment was the beginning of the tremulous motion of head and hands which I have seen

The evening of the day on which we heard of Mr Holbrook's death, Miss Matilda was very silent and

thoughtful; after prayers she called Martha back and then she stood uncertain what to say.

"Martha!" she said, at last, "you are young" and then she made so long a pause that Martha, to remind her

"And, perhaps, Martha, you may some time meet with a young man you like, and who likes you. I did say

you were not to have followers; but if you meet with such a young man, and tell me, and I find he is

respectable, I have no objection to his coming to see you once a week. God forbid!" said she in a low voice,

"that I should grieve any young hearts." She spoke as if she were providing for some distant contingency, and

"Please, ma'am, there's Jem Hearn, and he's a joiner making three andsixpence aday, and six foot one in

his stockingfeet, please, ma'am; and if you'll ask about him tomorrow morning, every one will give him a

character for steadiness; and he'll be glad enough to come tomorrow night, I'll be bound."

I HAVE often noticed that almost every one has his own individual small economies careful habits of

saving fractions of pennies in some one peculiar direction any disturbance of which annoys him more than

spending shillings or pounds on some real extravagance. An old gentleman of my acquaintance, who took the

intelligence of the failure of a JointStock Bank, in which some of his money was invested, with stoical

mildness, worried his family all through a long summer's day because one of them had torn (instead of

cutting) out the written leaves of his now useless bankbook; of course, the corresponding pages at the other

end came out as well, and this little unnecessary waste of paper (his private economy) chafed him more than

all the loss of his money. Envelopes fretted his soul terribly when they first came in; the only way in which

he could reconcile himself to such waste of his cherished article was by patiently turning inside out all that

were sent to him, and so making them serve again. Even now, though tamed by age, I see him casting wistful

glances at his daughters when they send a whole inside of a halfsheet of note paper, with the three lines of

acceptance to an invitation, written on only one of the sides. I am not above owning that I have this human

weakness myself. String is my foible. My pockets get full of little hanks of it, picked up and twisted together,

ready for uses that never come. I am seriously annoyed if any one cuts the string of a parcel instead of

patiently and faithfully undoing it fold by fold. How people can bring themselves to use indiarubber rings,

which are a sort of deification of string, as lightly as they do, I cannot imagine. To me an indiarubber ring is

a precious treasure. I have one which is not new one that I picked up off the floor nearly six years ago. I

have really tried to use it, but my heart failed me, and I could not commit the extravagance.

Small pieces of butter grieve others. They cannot attend to conversation because of the annoyance occasioned

by the habit which some people have of invariably taking more butter than they want. Have you not seen the

anxious look (almost mesmeric) which such persons fix on the article? They would feel it a relief if they

might bury it out of their sight by popping it into their own mouths and swallowing it down; and they are

really made happy if the person on whose plate it lies unused suddenly breaks off a piece of toast (which he

does not want at all) and eats up his butter. They think that this is not waste.

Now Miss Matty Jenkyns was chary of candles. We had many devices to use as few as possible. In the winter

afternoons she would sit knitting for two or three hours she could do this in the dark, or by firelight and

when I asked if I might not ring for candles to finish stitching my wristbands, she told me to "keep blind

man's holiday." They were usually brought in with tea; but we only burnt one at a time. As we lived in

constant preparation for a friend who might come in any evening (but who never did), it required some

contrivance to keep our two candles of the same length, ready to be lighted, and to look as if we burnt two

always. The candles took it in turns; and, whatever we might be talking about or doing, Miss Matty's eyes

were habitually fixed upon the candle, ready to jump up and extinguish it and to light the other before they

had become too uneven in length to be restored to equality in the course of the evening.

One night, I remember this candle economy particularly annoyed me. I had been very much tired of my

compulsory "blind man's holiday," especially as Miss Matty had fallen asleep, and I did not like to stir the fire

and run the risk of awakening her; so I could not even sit on the rug, and scorch myself with sewing by

firelight, according to my usual custom. I fancied Miss Matty must be dreaming of her early life; for she

spoke one or two words in her uneasy sleep bearing reference to persons who were dead long before. When

Martha brought in the lighted candle and tea, Miss Matty started into wakefulness, with a strange, bewildered

look around, as if we were not the people she expected to see about her. There was a little sad expression that

shadowed her face as she recognised me; but immediately afterwards she tried to give me her usual smile. All

through teatime her talk ran upon the days of her childhood and youth. Perhaps this reminded her of the

desirableness of looking over all the old family letters, and destroying such as ought not to be allowed to fall

into the hands of strangers; for she had often spoken of the necessity of this task, but had always shrunk from

it, with a timid dread of something painful. Tonight, however, she rose up after tea and went for them in

the dark; for she piqued herself on the precise neatness of all her chamber arrangements, and used to look

uneasily at me when I lighted a bedcandle to go to another room for anything. When she returned there was

a faint, pleasant smell of Tonquin beans in the room. I had always noticed this scent about any of the things

which had belonged to her mother; and many of the letters were addressed to her yellow bundles of

Miss Matty undid the packet with a sigh; but she stifled it directly, as if it were hardly right to regret the flight

of time, or of life either. We agreed to look them over separately, each taking a different letter out of the same

bundle and describing its contents to the other before destroying it. I never knew what sad work the reading

of oldletters was before that evening, though I could hardly tell why. The letters were as happy as letters

could be at least those early letters were. There was in them a vivid and intense sense of the present time,

which seemed so strong and full, as if it could never pass away, and as if the warm, living hearts that so

expressed themselves could never die, and be as nothing to the sunny earth. I should have felt less

melancholy, I believe, if the letters had been more so. I saw the tears stealing down the wellworn furrows of

Miss Matty's cheeks, and her spectacles often wanted wiping. I trusted at last that she would light the other

candle, for my own eyes were rather dim, and I wanted more light to see the pale, faded ink; but no, even

The earliest set of letters were two bundles tied together, and ticketed (in Miss Jenkyns's handwriting)

"Letters interchanged between my everhonoured father and my dearlybeloved mother, prior to their

marriage, in July 1774." I should guess that the rector of Cranford was about twentyseven years of age when

he wrote those letters; and Miss Matty told me that her mother was just eighteen at the time of her wedding.

With my idea of the rector derived from a picture in the diningparlour, stiff and stately, in a huge

fullbottomed wig, with gown, cassock, and bands, and his hand upon a copy of the only sermon he ever

published it was strange to read these letters. They were full of eager, passionate ardour; short homely

sentences, right fresh from the heart (very different from the grand Latinised, Johnsonian style of the printed

sermon preached before some judge at assize time). His letters were a curious contrast to those of his

girlbride. She was evidently rather annoyed at his demands upon her for expressions of love, and could not

quite understand what he meant by repeating the same thing over in so many different ways; but what she

was quite clear about was a longing for a white "Paduasoy" whatever that might be; and six or seven letters

were principally occupied in asking her lover to use his influence with her parents (who evidently kept her in

good order) to obtain this or that article of dress, more especially the white "Paduasoy." He cared nothing

how she was dressed; she was always lovely enough for him, as he took pains to assure her, when she begged

him to express in his answers a predilection for particular pieces of finery, in order that she might show what

he said to her parents. But at length he seemed to find out that she would not be married till she had a

"trousseau" to her mind; and then he sent her a letter, which had evidently accompanied a whole box full of

finery, and in which he requested that she might be dressed in everything her heart desired. This was the first

letter, ticketed in a frail, delicate hand, "From my dearest John." Shortly afterwards they were married, I

"We must burn them, I think," said Miss Matty, looking doubtfully at me. "No one will care for them when I

am gone." And one by one she dropped them into the middle of the fire, watching each blaze up, die out, and

rise away, in faint, white, ghostly semblance, up the chimney, before she gave another to the same fate. The

room was light enough now; but I, like her, was fascinated into watching the destruction of those letters, into

The next letter, likewise docketed by Miss Jenkyns, was endorsed, "Letter of pious congratulation and

exhortation from my venerable grandfather to my beloved mother, on occasion of my own birth. Also some

practical remarks on the desirability of keeping warm the extremities of infants, from my excellent

The first part was, indeed, a severe and forcible picture of the responsibilities of mothers, and a warning

against the evils that were in the world, and lying in ghastly wait for the little baby of two days old. His wife

did not write, said the old gentleman, because he had forbidden it, she being indisposed with a sprained ankle,

which (he said) quite incapacitated her from holding a pen. However, at the foot of the page was a small

"T.O.," and on turning it over, sure enough, there was a letter to "my dear, dearest Molly," begging her, when

she left her room, whatever she did, to go UP stairs before going DOWN: and telling her to wrap her baby's

feet up in flannel, and keep it warm by the fire, although it was summer, for babies were so tender.

It was pretty to see from the letters, which were evidently exchanged with some frequency between the young

mother and the grandmother, how the girlish vanity was being weeded out of her heart by love for her baby.

The white "Paduasoy" figured again in the letters, with almost as much vigour as before. In one, it was being

made into a christening cloak for the baby. It decked it when it went with its parents to spend a day or two at

Arley Hall. It added to its charms, when it was "the prettiest little baby that ever was seen. Dear mother, I

wish you could see her! Without any pershality, I do think she will grow up a regular bewty!" I thought of

Miss Jenkyns, grey, withered, and wrinkled, and I wondered if her mother had known her in the courts of

heaven: and then I knew that she had, and that they stood there in angelic guise.

There was a great gap before any of the rector's letters appeared. And then his wife had changed her mode of

her endorsement. It was no longer from, "My dearest John;" it was from "My Honoured Husband." The

letters were written on occasion of the publication of the same sermon which was represented in the picture.

The preaching before "My Lord Judge," and the "publishing by request," was evidently the culminating point

the event of his life. It had been necessary for him to go up to London to superintend it through the press.

Many friends had to be called upon and consulted before he could decide on any printer fit for so onerous a

task; and at length it was arranged that J. and J. Rivingtons were to have the honourable responsibility. The

worthy rector seemed to be strung up by the occasion to a high literary pitch, for he could hardly write a letter

to his wife without cropping out into Latin. I remember the end of one of his letters ran thus: "I shall ever

hold the virtuous qualities of my Molly in remembrance, DUM MEMOR IPSE MEI, DUM SPIRITUS

REGIT ARTUS," which, considering that the English of his correspondent was sometimes at fault in

grammar, and often in spelling, might be taken as a proof of how much he "idealised his Molly;" and, as Miss

Jenkyns used to say, "People talk a great deal about idealising nowadays, whatever that may mean." But

this was nothing to a fit of writing classical poetry which soon seized him, in which his Molly figured away

as "Maria." The letter containing the CARMEN was endorsed by her, "Hebrew verses sent me by my

honoured husband. I thowt to have had a letter about killing the pig, but must wait. Mem., to send the poetry

to Sir Peter Arley, as my husband desires." And in a post scriptum note in his handwriting it was stated that

Her letters back to her husband (treasured as fondly by him as if they had been M. T. CICERONIS

EPISTOLAE) were more satisfactory to an absent husband and father than his could ever have been to her.

She told him how Deborah sewed her seam very neatly every day, and read to her in the books he had set her;

how she was a very "forrard," good child, but would ask questions her mother could not answer, but how she

did not let herself down by saying she did not know, but took to stirring the fire, or sending the "forrard"

child on an errand. Matty was now the mother's darling, and promised (like her sister at her age), to be a great

beauty. I was reading this aloud to Miss Matty, who smiled and sighed a little at the hope, so fondly

"I had very pretty hair, my dear," said Mist Matilda; "and not a bad mouth." And I saw her soon afterwards

But to return to Mrs Jenkyns's letters. She told her husband about the poor in the parish; what homely

domestic medicines she had administered; what kitchen physic she had sent. She had evidently held his

displeasure as a rod in pickle over the heads of all the ne'erdowells. She asked for his directions about the

The kind old grandmother was dead when a little boy was born, soon after the publication of the sermon; but

there was another letter of exhortation from the grandfather, more stringent and admonitory than ever, now

that there was a boy to be guarded from the snares of the world. He described all the various sins into which

men might fall, until I wondered how any man ever came to a natural death. The gallows seemed as if it must

have been the termination of the lives of most of the grandfather's friends and acquaintance; and I was not

It seemed curious that I should never have heard of this brother before; but I concluded that he had died

Byandby we came to packets of Miss Jenkyns's letters. These Miss Matty did regret to burn. She said all

the others had been only interesting to those who loved the writers, and that it seemed as if it would have hurt

her to allow them to fall into the hands of strangers, who had not known her dear mother, and how good she

was, although she did not always spell, quite in the modern fashion; but Deborah's letters were so very

superior! Any one might profit by reading them. It was a long time since she had read Mrs Chapone, but she

knew she used to think that Deborah could have said the same things quite as well; and as for Mrs Carter!

people thought a deal of her letters, just because she had written "Epictetus," but she was quite sure Deborah

Miss Matty did grudge burning these letters, it was evident. She would not let them be carelessly passed over

with any quiet reading, and skipping, to myself. She took them from me, and even lighted the second candle

in order to read them aloud with a proper emphasis, and without stumbling over the big words. Oh dear! how

I wanted facts instead of reflections, before those letters were concluded! They lasted us two nights; and I

won't deny that I made use of the time to think of many other things, and yet I was always at my post at the

The rector's letters, and those of his wife and motherinlaw, had all been tolerably short and pithy, written

in a straight hand, with the lines very close together. Sometimes the whole letter was contained on a mere

scrap of paper. The paper was very yellow, and the ink very brown; some of the sheets were (as Miss Matty

made me observe) the old original post, with the stamp in the corner representing a postboy riding for life

and twanging his horn. The letters of Mrs Jenkyns and her mother were fastened with a great round red

wafer; for it was before Miss Edgeworth's "patronage" had banished wafers from polite society. It was

evident, from the tenor of what was said, that franks were in great request, and were even used as a means of

paying debts by needy members of Parliament. The rector sealed his epistles with an immense coat of arms,

and showed by the care with which he had performed this ceremony that he expected they should be cut

open, not broken by any thoughtless or impatient hand. Now, Miss Jenkyns's letters were of a later date in

form and writing. She wrote on the square sheet which we have learned to call oldfashioned. Her hand was

admirably calculated, together with her use of manysyllabled words, to fill up a sheet, and then came the

pride and delight of crossing. Poor Miss Matty got sadly puzzled with this, for the words gathered size like

snowballs, and towards the end of her letter Miss Jenkyns used to become quite sesquipedalian. In one to her

father, slightly theological and controversial in its tone, she had spoken of Herod, Tetrarch of Idumea. Miss

Matty read it "Herod Petrarch of Etruria," and was just as well pleased as if she had been right.

I can't quite remember the date, but I think it was in 1805 that Miss Jenkyns wrote the longest series of letters

on occasion of her absence on a visit to some friends near NewcastleuponTyne. These friends were

intimate with the commandant of the garrison there, and heard from him of all the preparations that were

being made to repel the invasion of Buonaparte, which some people imagined might take place at the mouth

of the Tyne. Miss Jenkyns was evidently very much alarmed; and the first part of her letters was often written

in pretty intelligible English, conveying particulars of the preparations which were made in the family with

whom she was residing against the dreaded event; the bundles of clothes that were packed up ready for a

flight to Alston Moor (a wild hilly piece of ground between Northumberland and Cumberland); the signal

that was to be given for this flight, and for the simultaneous turning out of the volunteers under arms which

said signal was to consist (if I remember rightly) in ringing the church bells in a particular and ominous

manner. One day, when Miss Jenkyns and her hosts were at a dinnerparty in Newcastle, this warning

summons was actually given (not a very wise proceeding, if there be any truth in the moral attached to the

fable of the Boy and the Wolf; but so it was), and Miss Jenkyns, hardly recovered from her fright, wrote the

next day to describe the sound, the breathless shock, the hurry and alarm; and then, taking breath, she added,

"How trivial, my dear father, do all our apprehensions of the last evening appear, at the present moment, to

"But, indeed, my dear, they were not at all trivial or trifling at the time. I know I used to wake up in the night

many a time and think I heard the tramp of the French entering Cranford. Many people talked of hiding

themselves in the salt mines and meat would have kept capitally down there, only perhaps we should have

been thirsty. And my father preached a whole set of sermons on the occasion; one set in the mornings, all

about David and Goliath, to spirit up the people to fighting with spades or bricks, if need were; and the other

set in the afternoons, proving that Napoleon (that was another name for Bony, as we used to call him) was all

the same as an Apollyon and Abaddon. I remember my father rather thought he should be asked to print this

Peter Marmaduke Arley Jenkyns ("poor Peter!" as Miss Matty began to call him) was at school at

Shrewsbury by this time. The rector took up his pen, and rubbed up his Latin once more, to correspond with

his boy. It was very clear that the lad's were what are called show letters. They were of a highly mental

description, giving an account of his studies, and his intellectual hopes of various kinds, with an occasional

quotation from the classics; but, now and then, the animal nature broke out in such a little sentence as this,

evidently written in a trembling hurry, after the letter had been inspected: "Mother dear, do send me a cake,

and put plenty of citron in." The "mother dear" probably answered her boy in the form of cakes and "goody,"

for there were none of her letters among this set; but a whole collection of the rector's, to whom the Latin in

his boy's letters was like a trumpet to the old warhorse. I do not know much about Latin, certainly, and it is,

perhaps, an ornamental language, but not very useful, I think at least to judge from the bits I remember out

of the rector's letters. One was, "You have not got that town in your map of Ireland; but BONUS

BERNARDUS NON VIDET OMNIA, as the Proverbia say." Presently it became very evident that "poor

Peter" got himself into many scrapes. There were letters of stilted penitence to his father, for some

wrongdoing; and among them all was a badlywritten, badlysealed, badlydirected, blotted note: "My

dear, dear, dear, dearest mother, I will be a better boy; I will, indeed; but don't, please, be ill for me; I am not

Miss Matty could not speak for crying, after she had read this note. She gave it to me in silence, and then got

up and took it to her sacred recesses in her own room, for fear, by any chance, it might get burnt. "Poor

Peter!" she said; "he was always in scrapes; he was too easy. They led him wrong, and then left him in the

lurch. But he was too fond of mischief. He could never resist a joke. Poor Peter!"

POOR Peter's career lay before him rather pleasantly mapped out by kind friends, but BONUS

BERNARDUS NON VIDET OMNIA, in this map too. He was to win honours at the Shrewsbury School, and

carry them thick to Cambridge, and after that, a living awaited him, the gift of his godfather, Sir Peter Arley.

Poor Peter! his lot in life was very different to what his friends had hoped and planned. Miss Matty told me

He was the darling of his mother, who seemed to dote on all her children, though she was, perhaps, a little

afraid of Deborah's superior acquirements. Deborah was the favourite of her father, and when Peter

disappointed him, she became his pride. The sole honour Peter brought away from Shrewsbury was the

reputation of being the best good fellow that ever was, and of being the captain of the school in the art of

practical joking. His father was disappointed, but set about remedying the matter in a manly way. He could

not afford to send Peter to read with any tutor, but he could read with him himself; and Miss Matty told me

much of the awful preparations in the way of dictionaries and lexicons that were made in her father's study

"My poor mother!" said she. "I remember how she used to stand in the hall, just near enough the studydoor,

to catch the tone of my father's voice. I could tell in a moment if all was going right, by her face. And it did

"No! it was not the Latin. Peter was in high favour with my father, for he worked up well for him. But he

seemed to think that the Cranford people might be joked about, and made fun of, and they did not like it;

nobody does. He was always hoaxing them; 'hoaxing' is not a pretty word, my dear, and I hope you won't tell

your father I used it, for I should not like him to think that I was not choice in my language, after living with

such a woman as Deborah. And be sure you never use it yourself. I don't know how it slipped out of my

mouth, except it was that I was thinking of poor Peter and it was always his expression. But he was a very

gentlemanly boy in many things. He was like dear Captain Brown in always being ready to help any old

person or a child. Still, he did like joking and making fun; and he seemed to think the old ladies in Cranford

would believe anything. There were many old ladies living here then; we are principally ladies now, I know,

but we are not so old as the ladies used to be when I was a girl. I could laugh to think of some of Peter's

jokes. No, my dear, I won't tell you of them, because they might not shock you as they ought to do, and they

were very shocking. He even took in my father once, by dressing himself up as a lady that was passing

through the town and wished to see the Rector of Cranford, 'who had published that admirable Assize

Sermon.' Peter said he was awfully frightened himself when he saw how my father took it all in, and even

offered to copy out all his Napoleon Buonaparte sermons for her him, I mean no, her, for Peter was a lady

then. He told me he was more terrified than he ever was before, all the time my father was speaking. He did

not think my father would have believed him; and yet if he had not, it would have been a sad thing for Peter.

As it was, he was none so glad of it, for my father kept him hard at work copying out all those twelve

Buonaparte sermons for the lady that was for Peter himself, you know. He was the lady. And once when he

wanted to go fishing, Peter said, 'Confound the woman!' very bad language, my dear, but Peter was not

always so guarded as he should have been; my father was so angry with him, it nearly frightened me out of

my wits: and yet I could hardly keep from laughing at the little curtseys Peter kept making, quite slyly,

whenever my father spoke of the lady's excellent taste and sound discrimination."

"Oh, no! Deborah would have been too much shocked. No, no one knew but me. I wish I had always known

of Peter's plans; but sometimes he did not tell me. He used to say the old ladies in the town wanted something

to talk about; but I don't think they did. They had the ST JAMES'S CHRONICLE three times a week, just as

we have now, and we have plenty to say; and I remember the clacking noise there always was when some of

the ladies got together. But, probably, schoolboys talk more than ladies. At last there was a terrible, sad thing

happened." Miss Matty got up, went to the door, and opened it; no one was there. She rang the bell for

Martha, and when Martha came, her mistress told her to go for eggs to a farm at the other end of the town.

Miss Matty drew herself up, and as soon as we were alone, she wished that Martha had more maidenly

"We'll put out the candle, my dear. We can talk just as well by firelight, you know. There! Well, you see,

Deborah had gone from home for a fortnight or so; it was a very still, quiet day, I remember, overhead; and

the lilacs were all in flower, so I suppose it was spring. My father had gone out to see some sick people in the

parish; I recollect seeing him leave the house with his wig and shovelhat and cane. What possessed our poor

Peter I don't know; he had the sweetest temper, and yet he always seemed to like to plague Deborah. She

never laughed at his jokes, and thought him ungenteel, and not careful enough about improving his mind; and

"Well! he went to her room, it seems, and dressed himself in her old gown, and shawl, and bonnet; just the

things she used to wear in Cranford, and was known by everywhere; and he made the pillow into a little

you are sure you locked the door, my dear, for I should not like anyone to hear into into a little baby, with

white long clothes. It was only, as he told me afterwards, to make something to talk about in the town; he

never thought of it as affecting Deborah. And he went and walked up and down in the Filbert walk just

halfhidden by the rails, and halfseen; and he cuddled his pillow, just like a baby, and talked to it all the

nonsense people do. Oh dear! and my father came stepping stately up the street, as he always did; and what

should he see but a little black crowd of people I daresay as many as twenty all peeping through his

garden rails. So he thought, at first, they were only looking at a new rhododendron that was in full bloom, and

that he was very proud of; and he walked slower, that they might have more time to admire. And he

wondered if he could make out a sermon from the occasion, and thought, perhaps, there was some relation

between the rhododendrons and the lilies of the field. My poor father! When he came nearer, he began to

wonder that they did not see him; but their heads were all so close together, peeping and peeping! My father

was amongst them, meaning, he said, to ask them to walk into the garden with him, and admire the beautiful

vegetable production, when oh, my dear, I tremble to think of it he looked through the rails himself, and

saw I don't know what he thought he saw, but old Clare told me his face went quite grey white with anger,

and his eyes blazed out under his frowning black brows; and he spoke out oh, so terribly! and bade them

all stop where they were not one of them to go, not one of them to stir a step; and, swift as light, he was in

at the garden door, and down the Filbert walk, and seized hold of poor Peter, and tore his clothes off his back

bonnet, shawl, gown, and all and threw the pillow among the people over the railings: and then he was

very, very angry indeed, and before all the people he lifted up his cane and flogged Peter!

"My dear, that boy's trick, on that sunny day, when all seemed going straight and well, broke my mother's

heart, and changed my father for life. It did, indeed. Old Clare said, Peter looked as white as my father; and

stood as still as a statue to be flogged; and my father struck hard! When my father stopped to take breath,

Peter said, 'Have you done enough, sir?' quite hoarsely, and still standing quite quiet. I don't know what my

father said or if he said anything. But old Clare said, Peter turned to where the people outside the railing

were, and made them a low bow, as grand and as grave as any gentleman; and then walked slowly into the

house. I was in the storeroom helping my mother to make cowslip wine. I cannot abide the wine now, nor

the scent of the flowers; they turn me sick and faint, as they did that day, when Peter came in, looking as

haughty as any man indeed, looking like a man, not like a boy. 'Mother!' he said, 'I am come to say, God

bless you for ever.' I saw his lips quiver as he spoke; and I think he durst not say anything more loving, for

the purpose that was in his heart. She looked at him rather frightened, and wondering, and asked him what

was to do. He did not smile or speak, but put his arms round her and kissed her as if he did not know how to

leave off; and before she could speak again, he was gone. We talked it over, and could not understand it, and

she bade me go and seek my father, and ask what it was all about. I found him walking up and down, looking

"I durst not ask any more questions. When I told my mother, she sat down, quite faint, for a minute. I

remember, a few days after, I saw the poor, withered cowslip flowers thrown out to the leaf heap, to decay

and die there. There was no making of cowslip wine that year at the rectory nor, indeed, ever after.

"Presently my mother went to my father. I know I thought of Queen Esther and King Ahasuerus; for my

mother was very pretty and delicatelooking, and my father looked as terrible as King Ahasuerus. Some time

after they came out together; and then my mother told me what had happened, and that she was going up to

Peter's room at my father's desire though she was not to tell Peter this to talk the matter over with him.

But no Peter was there. We looked over the house; no Peter was there! Even my father, who had not liked to

join in the search at first, helped us before long. The rectory was a very old house steps up into a room,

steps down into a room, all through. At first, my mother went calling low and soft, as if to reassure the poor

boy, 'Peter! Peter, dear! it's only me;' but, byandby, as the servants came back from the errands my father

had sent them, in different directions, to find where Peter was as we found he was not in the garden, nor the

hayloft, nor anywhere about my mother's cry grew louder and wilder, Peter! Peter, my darling! where are

you?' for then she felt and understood that that long kiss meant some sad kind of 'goodbye.' The afternoon

went on my mother never resting, but seeking again and again in every possible place that had been looked

into twenty times before, nay, that she had looked into over and over again herself. My father sat with his

head in his hands, not speaking except when his messengers came in, bringing no tidings; then he lifted up

his face, so strong and sad, and told them to go again in some new direction. My mother kept passing from

room to room, in and out of the house, moving noiselessly, but never ceasing. Neither she nor my father durst

leave the house, which was the meetingplace for all the messengers. At last (and it was nearly dark), my

father rose up. He took hold of my mother's arm as she came with wild, sad pace through one door, and

quickly towards another. She started at the touch of his hand, for she had forgotten all in the world but Peter.

"'Molly!' said he, 'I did not think all this would happen.' He looked into her face for comfort her poor face

all wild and white; for neither she nor my father had dared to acknowledge much less act upon the terror

that was in their hearts, lest Peter should have made away with himself. My father saw no conscious look in

his wife's hot, dreary eyes, and he missed the sympathy that she had always been ready to give him strong

man as he was, and at the dumb despair in her face his tears began to flow. But when she saw this, a gentle

sorrow came over her countenance, and she said, 'Dearest John! don't cry; come with me, and we'll find him,'

almost as cheerfully as if she knew where he was. And she took my father's great hand in her little soft one,

and led him along, the tears dropping as he walked on that same unceasing, weary walk, from room to room,

"Oh, how I wished for Deborah! I had no time for crying, for now all seemed to depend on me. I wrote for

Deborah to come home. I sent a message privately to that same Mr Holbrook's house poor Mr Holbrook;

you know who I mean. I don't mean I sent a message to him, but I sent one that I could trust to know if Peter

was at his house. For at one time Mr Holbrook was an occasional visitor at the rectory you know he was

Miss Pole's cousin and he had been very kind to Peter, and taught him how to fish he was very kind to

everybody, and I thought Peter might have gone off there. But Mr Holbrook was from home, and Peter had

never been seen. It was night now; but the doors were all wide open, and my father and mother walked on

and on; it was more than an hour since he had joined her, and I don't believe they had ever spoken all that

time. I was getting the parlour fire lighted, and one of the servants was preparing tea, for I wanted them to

have something to eat and drink and warm them, when old Clare asked to speak to me.

"'I have borrowed the nets from the weir, Miss Matty. Shall we drag the ponds tonight, or wait for the

"I remember staring in his face to gather his meaning; and when I did, I laughed out loud. The horror of that

new thought our bright, darling Peter, cold, and stark, and dead! I remember the ring of my own laugh now.

"The next day Deborah was at home before I was myself again. She would not have been so weak as to give

way as I had done; but my screams (my horrible laughter had ended in crying) had roused my sweet dear

mother, whose poor wandering wits were called back and collected as soon as a child needed her care. She

and Deborah sat by my bedside; I knew by the looks of each that there had been no news of Peter no awful,

ghastly news, which was what I most had dreaded in my dull state between sleeping and waking.

"The same result of all the searching had brought something of the same relief to my mother, to whom, I am

sure, the thought that Peter might even then be hanging dead in some of the familiar home places had caused

that neverending walk of yesterday. Her soft eyes never were the same again after that; they had always a

restless, craving look, as if seeking for what they could not find. Oh! it was an awful time; coming down like

"He had made his way to Liverpool; and there was war then; and some of the king's ships lay off the mouth

of the Mersey; and they were only too glad to have a fine likely boy such as him (five foot nine he was),

come to offer himself. The captain wrote to my father, and Peter wrote to my mother. Stay! those letters will

We lighted the candle, and found the captain's letter and Peter's too. And we also found a little simple

begging letter from Mrs Jenkyns to Peter, addressed to him at the house of an old schoolfellow whither she

fancied he might have gone. They had returned it unopened; and unopened it had remained ever since, having

"MY DEAREST PETER, You did not think we should be so sorry as we are, I know, or you would never

have gone away. You are too good. Your father sits and sighs till my heart aches to hear him. He cannot hold

up his head for grief; and yet he only did what he thought was right. Perhaps he has been too severe, and

perhaps I have not been kind enough; but God knows how we love you, my dear only boy. Don looks so

sorry you are gone. Come back, and make us happy, who love you so much. I know you will come back."

But Peter did not come back. That spring day was the last time he ever saw his mother's face. The writer of

the letter the last the only person who had ever seen what was written in it, was dead long ago; and I, a

stranger, not born at the time when this occurrence took place, was the one to open it.

The captain's letter summoned the father and mother to Liverpool instantly, if they wished to see their boy;

and, by some of the wild chances of life, the captain's letter had been detained somewhere, somehow.

Miss Matty went on, "And it was racetime, and all the posthorses at Cranford were gone to the races; but my

father and mother set off in our own gig and oh! my dear, they were too late the ship was gone! And now

It was full of love, and sorrow, and pride in his new profession, and a sore sense of his disgrace in the eyes of

the people at Cranford; but ending with a passionate entreaty that she would come and see him before he left

the Mersey: "Mother; we may go into battle. I hope we shall, and lick those French: but I must see you again

We sat in silence, pondering on the full meaning of those sad, sad words. At length I asked Miss Matty to tell

"Oh!" she said, "she was patience itself. She had never been strong, and this weakened her terribly. My father

used to sit looking at her: far more sad than she was. He seemed as if he could look at nothing else when she

was by; and he was so humble so very gentle now. He would, perhaps, speak in his old way laying down

the law, as it were and then, in a minute or two, he would come round and put his hand on our shoulders,

and ask us in a low voice, if he had said anything to hurt us. I did not wonder at his speaking so to Deborah,

"But, you see, he saw what we did not that it was killing my mother. Yes! killing her (put out the candle,

my dear; I can talk better in the dark), for she was but a frail woman, and illfitted to stand the fright and

shock she had gone through; and she would smile at him and comfort him, not in words, but in her looks and

tones, which were always cheerful when he was there. And she would speak of how she thought Peter stood a

good chance of being admiral very soon he was so brave and clever; and how she thought of seeing him in

his navy uniform, and what sort of hats admirals wore; and how much more fit he was to be a sailor than a

clergyman; and all in that way, just to make my father think she was quite glad of what came of that unlucky

morning's work, and the flogging which was always in his mind, as we all knew. But oh, my dear! the bitter,

bitter crying she had when she was alone; and at last, as she grew weaker, she could not keep her tears in

when Deborah or me was by, and would give us message after message for Peter (his ship had gone to the

Mediterranean, or somewhere down there, and then he was ordered off to India, and there was no overland

route then); but she still said that no one knew where their death lay in wait, and that we were not to think

"Well, my dear, it's very foolish of me, I know, when in all likelihood I am so near seeing her again.

"And only think, love! the very day after her death for she did not live quite a twelvemonth after Peter went

away the very day after came a parcel for her from India from her poor boy. It was a large, soft, white

Indian shawl, with just a little narrow border all round; just what my mother would have liked.

"We thought it might rouse my father, for he had sat with her hand in his all night long; so Deborah took it in

to him, and Peter's letter to her, and all. At first, he took no notice; and we tried to make a kind of light

careless talk about the shawl, opening it out and admiring it. Then, suddenly, he got up, and spoke: 'She shall

be buried in it,' he said; 'Peter shall have that comfort; and she would have liked it.'

"Well, perhaps it was not reasonable, but what could we do or say? One gives people in grief their own way.

He took it up and felt it: 'It is just such a shawl as she wished for when she was married, and her mother did

not give it her. I did not know of it till after, or she should have had it she should; but she shall have it now.'

"My mother looked so lovely in her death! She was always pretty, and now she looked fair, and waxen, and

young younger than Deborah, as she stood trembling and shivering by her. We decked her in the long soft

folds; she lay smiling, as if pleased; and people came all Cranford came to beg to see her, for they had

loved her dearly, as well they might; and the countrywomen brought posies; old Clare's wife brought some

"Deborah said to me, the day of my mother's funeral, that if she had a hundred offers she never would marry

and leave my father. It was not very likely she would have so many I don't know that she had one; but it

was not less to her credit to say so. She was such a daughter to my father as I think there never was before or

since. His eyes failed him, and she read book after book, and wrote, and copied, and was always at his service

in any parish business. She could do many more things than my poor mother could; she even once wrote a

letter to the bishop for my father. But he missed my mother sorely; the whole parish noticed it. Not that he

was less active; I think he was more so, and more patient in helping every one. I did all I could to set Deborah

at liberty to be with him; for I knew I was good for little, and that my best work in the world was to do odd

"Yes, once. He came home a lieutenant; he did not get to be admiral. And he and my father were such

friends! My father took him into every house in the parish, he was so proud of him. He never walked out

without Peter's arm to lean upon. Deborah used to smile (I don't think we ever laughed again after my

mother's death), and say she was quite put in a corner. Not but what my father always wanted her when there

"Then Peter went to sea again; and, byandby, my father died, blessing us both, and thanking Deborah for

all she had been to him; and, of course, our circumstances were changed; and, instead of living at the rectory,

and keeping three maids and a man, we had to come to this small house, and be content with a

servantofall work; but, as Deborah used to say, we have always lived genteelly, even if circumstances

"Oh, there was some great war in India I forget what they call it and we have never heard of Peter since

then. I believe he is dead myself; and it sometimes fidgets me that we have never put on mourning for him.

And then again, when I sit by myself, and all the house is still, I think I hear his step coming up the street, and

my heart begins to flutter and beat; but the sound always goes past and Peter never comes.

"That's Martha back? No! I'LL go, my dear; I can always find my way in the dark, you know. And a blow of

fresh air at the door will do my head good, and it's rather got a trick of aching."

So she pattered off. I had lighted the candle, to give the room a cheerful appearance against her return.

"Yes. And I am rather uncomfortable, for I heard such a strange noise, just as I was opening the door."

ONE morning, as Miss Matty and I sat at our work it was before twelve o'clock, and Miss Matty had not

changed the cap with yellow ribbons that had been Miss Jenkyns's best, and which Miss Matty was now

wearing out in private, putting on the one made in imitation of Mrs Jamieson's at all times when she expected

to be seen Martha came up, and asked if Miss Betty Barker might speak to her mistress. Miss Matty

assented, and quickly disappeared to change the yellow ribbons, while Miss Barker came upstairs; but, as she

had forgotten her spectacles, and was rather flurried by the unusual time of the visit, I was not surprised to

see her return with one cap on the top of the other. She was quite unconscious of it herself, and looked at us,

with bland satisfaction. Nor do I think Miss Barker perceived it; for, putting aside the little circumstance that

she was not so young as she had been, she was very much absorbed in her errand, which she delivered herself

Miss Betty Barker was the daughter of the old clerk at Cranford who had officiated in Mr Jenkyns's time. She

and her sister had had pretty good situations as ladies' maids, and had saved money enough to set up a

milliner's shop, which had been patronised by the ladies in the neighbourhood. Lady Arley, for instance,

would occasionally give Miss Barkers the pattern of an old cap of hers, which they immediately copied and

circulated among the elite of Cranford. I say the ELITE, for Miss Barkers had caught the trick of the place,

and piqued themselves upon their "aristocratic connection." They would not sell their caps and ribbons to

anyone without a pedigree. Many a farmer's wife or daughter turned away huffed from Miss Barkers' select

millinery, and went rather to the universal shop, where the profits of brown soap and moist sugar enabled the

proprietor to go straight to (Paris, he said, until he found his customers too patriotic and John Bullish to wear

what the Mounseers wore) London, where, as he often told his customers, Queen Adelaide had appeared,

only the very week before, in a cap exactly like the one he showed them, trimmed with yellow and blue

ribbons, and had been complimented by King William on the becoming nature of her headdress.

Miss Barkers, who confined themselves to truth, and did not approve of miscellaneous customers, throve

notwithstanding. They were selfdenying, good people. Many a time have I seen the eldest of them (she that

had been maid to Mrs Jamieson) carrying out some delicate mess to a poor person. They only aped their

betters in having "nothing to do" with the class immediately below theirs. And when Miss Barker died, their

profits and income were found to be such that Miss Betty was justified in shutting up shop and retiring from

business. She also (as I think I have before said) set up her cow; a mark of respectability in Cranford almost

as decided as setting up a gig is among some people. She dressed finer than any lady in Cranford; and we did

not wonder at it; for it was understood that she was wearing out all the bonnets and caps and outrageous

ribbons which had once formed her stockintrade. It was five or six years since she had given up shop, so in

And now Miss Betty Barker had called to invite Miss Matty to tea at her house on the following Tuesday.

She gave me also an impromptu invitation, as I happened to be a visitor though I could see she had a little

fear lest, since my father had gone to live in Drumble, he might have engaged in that "horrid cotton trade,"

and so dragged his family down out of "aristocratic society." She prefaced this invitation with so many

apologies that she quite excited my curiosity. "Her presumption" was to be excused. What had she been

doing? She seemed so overpowered by it I could only think that she had been writing to Queen Adelaide to

ask for a receipt for washing lace; but the act which she so characterised was only an invitation she had

carried to her sister's former mistress, Mrs Jamieson. "Her former occupation considered, could Miss Matty

excuse the liberty?" Ah! thought I, she has found out that double cap, and is going to rectify Miss Matty's

headdress. No! it was simply to extend her invitation to Miss Matty and to me. Miss Matty bowed

acceptance; and I wondered that, in the graceful action, she did not feel the unusual weight and extraordinary

height of her headdress. But I do not think she did, for she recovered her balance, and went on talking to

Miss Betty in a kind, condescending manner, very different from the fidgety way she would have had if she

had suspected how singular her appearance was. "Mrs Jamieson is coming, I think you said?" asked Miss

"Yes. Mrs Jamieson most kindly and condescendingly said she would be happy to come. One little stipulation

she made, that she should bring Carlo. I told her that if I had a weakness, it was for dogs."

"And Miss Pole?" questioned Miss Matty, who was thinking of her pool at Preference, in which Carlo would

"I am going to ask Miss Pole. Of course, I could not think of asking her until I had asked you, madam the

rector's daughter, madam. Believe me, I do not forget the situation my father held under yours."

"And Mrs Forrester. I thought, in fact, of going to her before I went to Miss Pole. Although her circumstances

are changed, madam, she was born at Tyrrell, and we can never forget her alliance to the Bigges, of Bigelow

Miss Matty cared much more for the little circumstance of her being a very good cardplayer.

"No, madam. I must draw a line somewhere. Mrs Jamieson would not, I think, like to meet Mrs FitzAdam. I

have the greatest respect for Mrs FitzAdam but I cannot think her fit society for such ladies as Mrs

Miss Betty Barker bowed low to Miss Matty, and pursed up her mouth. She looked at me with sidelong

dignity, as much as to say, although a retired milliner, she was no democrat, and understood the difference of

"May I beg you to come as near halfpast six to my little dwelling, as possible, Miss Matilda? Mrs Jamieson

dines at five, but has kindly promised not to delay her visit beyond that time halfpast six." And with a

My prophetic soul foretold a visit that afternoon from Miss Pole, who usually came to call on Miss Matilda

"Miss Betty told me it was to be a choice and select few," said Miss Pole, as she and Miss Matty compared

Now Mrs FitzAdam was the widowed sister of the Cranford surgeon, whom I have named before. Their

parents were respectable farmers, content with their station. The name of these good people was Hoggins. Mr

Hoggins was the Cranford doctor now; we disliked the name and considered it coarse; but, as Miss Jenkyns

said, if he changed it to Piggins it would not be much better. We had hoped to discover a relationship

between him and that Marchioness of Exeter whose name was Molly Hoggins; but the man, careless of his

own interests, utterly ignored and denied any such relationship, although, as dear Miss Jenkyns had said, he

had a sister called Mary, and the same Christian names were very apt to run in families.

Soon after Miss Mary Hoggins married Mr FitzAdam, she disappeared from the neighbourhood for many

years. She did not move in a sphere in Cranford society sufficiently high to make any of us care to know what

Mr FitzAdam was. He died and was gathered to his fathers without our ever having thought about him at all.

And then Mrs FitzAdam reappeared in Cranford ("as bold as a lion," Miss Pole said), a welltodo widow,

dressed in rustling black silk, so soon after her husband's death that poor Miss Jenkyns was justified in the

I remember the convocation of ladies who assembled to decide whether or not Mrs FitzAdam should be

called upon by the old blue blooded inhabitants of Cranford. She had taken a large rambling house, which

had been usually considered to confer a patent of gentility upon its tenant, because, once upon a time, seventy

or eighty years before, the spinster daughter of an earl had resided in it. I am not sure if the inhabiting this

house was not also believed to convey some unusual power of intellect; for the earl's daughter, Lady Jane,

had a sister, Lady Anne, who had married a general officer in the time of the American war, and this general

officer had written one or two comedies, which were still acted on the London boards, and which, when we

saw them advertised, made us all draw up, and feel that Drury Lane was paying a very pretty compliment to

Cranford. Still, it was not at all a settled thing that Mrs FitzAdam was to be visited, when dear Miss Jenkyns

died; and, with her, something of the clear knowledge of the strict code of gentility went out too. As Miss

Pole observed, "As most of the ladies of good family in Cranford were elderly spinsters, or widows without

children, if we did not relax a little, and become less exclusive, byandby we should have no society at all."

"She had always understood that Fitz meant something aristocratic; there was FitzRoy she thought that

some of the King's children had been called FitzRoy; and there was FitzClarence, now they were the

children of dear good King William the Fourth. FitzAdam! it was a pretty name, and she thought it very

probably meant 'Child of Adam.' No one, who had not some good blood in their veins, would dare to be

called Fitz; there was a deal in a name she had had a cousin who spelt his name with two little ffs

ffoulkes and he always looked down upon capital letters and said they belonged to latelyinvented families.

She had been afraid he would die a bachelor, he was so very choice. When he met with a Mrs ffarringdon, at

a wateringplace, he took to her immediately; and a very pretty genteel woman she was a widow, with a

very good fortune; and 'my cousin,' Mr ffoulkes, married her; and it was all owing to her two little ffs."

Mrs FitzAdam did not stand a chance of meeting with a Mr Fitz anything in Cranford, so that could not

have been her motive for settling there. Miss Matty thought it might have been the hope of being admitted

into the society of the place, which would certainly be a very agreeable rise for CIDEVANT Miss Hoggins;

So everybody called upon Mrs FitzAdam everybody but Mrs Jamieson, who used to show how

honourable she was by never seeing Mrs FitzAdam when they met at the Cranford parties. There would be

only eight or ten ladies in the room, and Mrs FitzAdam was the largest of all, and she invariably used to

stand up when Mrs Jamieson came in, and curtsey very low to her whenever she turned in her direction so

low, in fact, that I think Mrs Jamieson must have looked at the wall above her, for she never moved a muscle

of her face, no more than if she had not seen her. Still Mrs Fitz Adam persevered.

The spring evenings were getting bright and long when three or four ladies in calashes met at Miss Barker's

door. Do you know what a calash is? It is a covering worn over caps, not unlike the heads fastened on

oldfashioned gigs; but sometimes it is not quite so large. This kind of headgear always made an awful

impression on the children in Cranford; and now two or three left off their play in the quiet sunny little street,

and gathered in wondering silence round Miss Pole, Miss Matty, and myself. We were silent too, so that we

could hear loud, suppressed whispers inside Miss Barker's house: "Wait, Peggy! wait till I've run upstairs and

And, true enough it was not a minute before we heard a noise, between a sneeze and a crow; on which the

door flew open. Behind it stood a roundeyed maiden, all aghast at the honourable company of calashes, who

marched in without a word. She recovered presence of mind enough to usher us into a small room, which had

been the shop, but was now converted into a temporary dressingroom. There we unpinned and shook

ourselves, and arranged our features before the glass into a sweet and gracious companyface; and then,

bowing backwards with "After you, ma'am," we allowed Mrs Forrester to take precedence up the narrow

staircase that led to Miss Barker's drawingroom. There she sat, as stately and composed as though we had

never heard that oddsounding cough, from which her throat must have been even then sore and rough. Kind,

gentle, shabbilydressed Mrs Forrester was immediately conducted to the second place of honour a seat

arranged something like Prince Albert's near the Queen's good, but not so good. The place of preeminence

was, of course, reserved for the Honourable Mrs Jamieson, who presently came panting up the stairs Carlo

And now Miss Betty Barker was a proud and happy woman! She stirred the fire, and shut the door, and sat as

near to it as she could, quite on the edge of her chair. When Peggy came in, tottering under the weight of the

teatray, I noticed that Miss Barker was sadly afraid lest Peggy should not keep her distance sufficiently. She

and her mistress were on very familiar terms in their everyday intercourse, and Peggy wanted now to make

several little confidences to her, which Miss Barker was on thorns to hear, but which she thought it her duty,

as a lady, to repress. So she turned away from all Peggy's asides and signs; but she made one or two very

malapropos answers to what was said; and at last, seized with a bright idea, she exclaimed, "Poor, sweet

Carlo! I'm forgetting him. Come downstairs with me, poor ittie doggie, and it shall have its tea, it shall!"

In a few minutes she returned, bland and benignant as before; but I thought she had forgotten to give the

"poor ittie doggie" anything to eat, judging by the avidity with which he swallowed down chance pieces of

cake. The teatray was abundantly loaded I was pleased to see it, I was so hungry; but I was afraid the

ladies present might think it vulgarly heaped up. I know they would have done at their own houses; but

somehow the heaps disappeared here. I saw Mrs Jamieson eating seedcake, slowly and considerately, as she

did everything; and I was rather surprised, for I knew she had told us, on the occasion of her last party, that

she never had it in her house, it reminded her so much of scented soap. She always gave us Savoy biscuits.

However, Mrs Jamieson was kindly indulgent to Miss Barker's want of knowledge of the customs of high

life; and, to spare her feelings, ate three large pieces of seedcake, with a placid, ruminating expression of

After tea there was some little demur and difficulty. We were six in number; four could play at Preference,

and for the other two there was Cribbage. But all, except myself (I was rather afraid of the Cranford ladies at

cards, for it was the most earnest and serious business they ever engaged in), were anxious to be of the

"pool." Even Miss Barker, while declaring she did not know Spadille from Manille, was evidently hankering

to take a hand. The dilemma was soon put an end to by a singular kind of noise. If a baron's daughterinlaw

could ever be supposed to snore, I should have said Mrs Jamieson did so then; for, overcome by the heat of

the room, and inclined to doze by nature, the temptation of that very comfortable armchair had been too

much for her, and Mrs Jamieson was nodding. Once or twice she opened her eyes with an effort, and calmly

but unconsciously smiled upon us; but byandby, even her benevolence was not equal to this exertion, and

"It is very gratifying to me," whispered Miss Barker at the card table to her three opponents, whom,

notwithstanding her ignorance of the game, she was "basting" most unmercifully "very gratifying indeed, to

see how completely Mrs Jamieson feels at home in my poor little dwelling; she could not have paid me a

Miss Barker provided me with some literature in the shape of three or four handsomelybound

fashionbooks ten or twelve years old, observing, as she put a little table and a candle for my especial

benefit, that she knew young people liked to look at pictures. Carlo lay and snorted, and started at his

The cardtable was an animated scene to watch; four ladies' heads, with niddlenoddling caps, all nearly

meeting over the middle of the table in their eagerness to whisper quick enough and loud enough: and every

now and then came Miss Barker's "Hush, ladies! if you please, hush! Mrs Jamieson is asleep."

It was very difficult to steer clear between Mrs Forrester's deafness and Mrs Jamieson's sleepiness. But Miss

Barker managed her arduous task well. She repeated the whisper to Mrs Forrester, distorting her face

considerably, in order to show, by the motions of her lips, what was said; and then she smiled kindly all

round at us, and murmured to herself, "Very gratifying, indeed; I wish my poor sister had been alive to see

Presently the door was thrown wide open; Carlo started to his feet, with a loud snapping bark, and Mrs

Jamieson awoke: or, perhaps, she had not been asleep as she said almost directly, the room had been so

light she had been glad to keep her eyes shut, but had been listening with great interest to all our amusing and

agreeable conversation. Peggy came in once more, red with importance. Another tray! "Oh, gentility!"

thought I, "can yon endure this last shock?" For Miss Barker had ordered (nay, I doubt not, prepared,

although she did say, "Why, Peggy, what have you brought us?" and looked pleasantly surprised at the

unexpected pleasure) all sorts of good things for supper scalloped oysters, potted lobsters, jelly, a dish

called "little Cupids" (which was in great favour with the Cranford ladies, although too expensive to be given,

except on solemn and state occasions macaroons sopped in brandy, I should have called it, if I had not

known its more refined and classical name). In short, we were evidently to be feasted with all that was

sweetest and best; and we thought it better to submit graciously, even at the cost of our gentility which

never ate suppers in general, but which, like most non suppereaters, was particularly hungry on all special

Miss Barker, in her former sphere, had, I daresay, been made acquainted with the beverage they call

cherrybrandy. We none of us had ever seen such a thing, and rather shrank back when she proffered it us

"just a little, leetle glass, ladies; after the oysters and lobsters, you know. Shellfish are sometimes thought

not very wholesome." We all shook our heads like female mandarins; but, at last, Mrs Jamieson suffered

herself to be persuaded, and we followed her lead. It was not exactly unpalatable, though so hot and so strong

that we thought ourselves bound to give evidence that we were not accustomed to such things by coughing

terribly almost as strangely as Miss Barker had done, before we were admitted by Peggy.

"It's very strong," said Miss Pole, as she put down her empty glass; "I do believe there's spirit in it."

"Only a little drop just necessary to make it keep," said Miss Barker. "You know we put brandypepper

over our preserves to make them keep. I often feel tipsy myself from eating damson tart."

I question whether damson tart would have opened Mrs Jamieson's heart as the cherrybrandy did; but she

told us of a coming event, respecting which she had been quite silent till that moment.

There was a chorus of "Indeed!" and then a pause. Each one rapidly reviewed her wardrobe, as to its fitness

to appear in the presence of a baron's widow; for, of course, a series of small festivals were always held in

Cranford on the arrival of a visitor at any of our friends' houses. We felt very pleasantly excited on the

Not long after this the maids and the lanterns were announced. Mrs Jamieson had the sedanchair, which had

squeezed itself into Miss Barker's narrow lobby with some difficulty, and most literally "stopped the way." It

required some skilful manoeuvring on the part of the old chairmen (shoemakers by day, but when summoned

to carry the sedan dressed up in a strange old livery long great coats, with small capes, coeval with the

sedan, and similar to the dress of the class in Hogarth's pictures) to edge, and back, and try at it again, and

finally to succeed in carrying their burden out of Miss Barker's front door. Then we heard their quick pita

pat along the quiet little street as we put on our calashes and pinned up our gowns; Miss Barker hovering

about us with offers of help, which, if she had not remembered her former occupation, and wished us to

EARLY the next morning directly after twelve Miss Pole made her appearance at Miss Matty's. Some

very trifling piece of business was alleged as a reason for the call; but there was evidently something behind.

"By the way, you'll think I'm strangely ignorant; but, do you really know, I am puzzled how we ought to

address Lady Glenmire. Do you say, 'Your Ladyship,' where you would say 'you' to a common person? I have

been puzzling all morning; and are we to say 'My Lady,' instead of 'Ma'am?' Now you knew Lady Arley

Poor Miss Matty! she took off her spectacles and she put them on again but how Lady Arley was

"It is so long ago," she said. "Dear! dear! how stupid I am! I don't think I ever saw her more than twice. I

know we used to call Sir Peter, 'Sir Peter' but he came much oftener to see us than Lady Arley did. Deborah

would have known in a minute. 'My lady' 'your ladyship.' It sounds very strange, and as if it was not

natural. I never thought of it before; but, now you have named it, I am all in a puzzle."

It was very certain Miss Pole would obtain no wise decision from Miss Matty, who got more bewildered

"Well, I really think," said Miss Pole, "I had better just go and tell Mrs Forrester about our little difficulty.

One sometimes grows nervous; and yet one would not have Lady Glenmire think we were quite ignorant of

"And will you just step in here, dear Miss Pole, as you come back, please, and tell me what you decide upon?

Whatever you and Mrs Forrester fix upon, will be quite right, I'm sure. 'Lady Arley,' 'Sir Peter,'" said Miss

"Oh, she's the widow of Mr Jamieson that's Mrs Jamieson's late husband, you know widow of his eldest

brother. Mrs Jamieson was a Miss Walker, daughter of Governor Walker. 'Your ladyship.' My dear, if they

fix on that way of speaking, you must just let me practice a little on you first, for I shall feel so foolish and

It was really a relief to Miss Matty when Mrs Jamieson came on a very unpolite errand. I notice that apathetic

people have more quiet impertinence than others; and Mrs Jamieson came now to insinuate pretty plainly that

she did not particularly wish that the Cranford ladies should call upon her sisterinlaw. I can hardly say how

she made this clear; for I grew very indignant and warm, while with slow deliberation she was explaining her

wishes to Miss Matty, who, a true lady herself, could hardly understand the feeling which made Mrs

Jamieson wish to appear to her noble sister inlaw as if she only visited "county" families. Miss Matty

remained puzzled and perplexed long after I had found out the object of Mrs Jamieson's visit.

When she did understand the drift of the honourable lady's call, it was pretty to see with what quiet dignity

she received the intimation thus uncourteously given. She was not in the least hurt she was of too gentle a

spirit for that; nor was she exactly conscious of disapproving of Mrs Jamieson's conduct; but there was

something of this feeling in her mind, I am sure, which made her pass from the subject to others in a less

flurried and more composed manner than usual. Mrs Jamieson was, indeed, the more flurried of the two, and

A little while afterwards Miss Pole returned, red and indignant. "Well! to be sure! You've had Mrs Jamieson

here, I find from Martha; and we are not to call on Lady Glenmire. Yes! I met Mrs Jamieson, halfway

between here and Mrs Forrester's, and she told me; she took me so by surprise, I had nothing to say. I wish I

had thought of something very sharp and sarcastic; I dare say I shall tonight. And Lady Glenmire is but the

widow of a Scotch baron after all! I went on to look at Mrs Forrester's Peerage, to see who this lady was, that

is to be kept under a glass case: widow of a Scotch peer never sat in the House of Lords and as poor as

job, I dare say; and she fifth daughter of some Mr Campbell or other. You are the daughter of a rector, at

any rate, and related to the Arleys; and Sir Peter might have been Viscount Arley, every one says."

Miss Matty tried to soothe Miss Pole, but in vain. That lady, usually so kind and goodhumoured, was now

"And I went and ordered a cap this morning, to be quite ready," said she at last, letting out the secret which

gave sting to Mrs Jamieson's intimation. "Mrs Jamieson shall see if it is so easy to get me to make fourth at a

In coming out of church, the first Sunday on which Lady Glenmire appeared in Cranford, we sedulously

talked together, and turned our backs on Mrs Jamieson and her guest. If we might not call on her, we would

not even look at her, though we were dying with curiosity to know what she was like. We had the comfort of

questioning Martha in the afternoon. Martha did not belong to a sphere of society whose observation could be

an implied compliment to Lady Glenmire, and Martha had made good use of her eyes.

"Well, ma'am! is it the little lady with Mrs Jamieson, you mean? I thought you would like more to know how

young Mrs Smith was dressed; her being a bride." (Mrs Smith was the butcher's wife).

Miss Pole said, "Good gracious me! as if we cared about a Mrs Smith;" but was silent as Martha resumed her

"The little lady in Mrs Jamieson's pew had on, ma'am, rather an old black silk, and a shepherd's plaid cloak,

ma'am, and very bright black eyes she had, ma'am, and a pleasant, sharp face; not over young, ma'am, but

yet, I should guess, younger than Mrs Jamieson herself. She looked up and down the church, like a bird, and

nipped up her petticoats, when she came out, as quick and sharp as ever I see. I'll tell you what, ma'am, she's

"Isn't it, ma'am? I beg pardon, I'm sure; but Jem Hearn said so as well. He said, she was just such a sharp,

Another Sunday passed away, and we still averted our eyes from Mrs Jamieson and her guest, and made

remarks to ourselves that we thought were very severe almost too much so. Miss Matty was evidently

Perhaps by this time Lady Glenmire had found out that Mrs Jamieson's was not the gayest, liveliest house in

the world; perhaps Mrs Jamieson had found out that most of the county families were in London, and that

those who remained in the country were not so alive as they might have been to the circumstance of Lady

Glenmire being in their neighbourhood. Great events spring out of small causes; so I will not pretend to say

what induced Mrs Jamieson to alter her determination of excluding the Cranford ladies, and send notes of

invitation all round for a small party on the following Tuesday. Mr Mulliner himself brought them round. He

WOULD always ignore the fact of there being a backdoor to any house, and gave a louder rattat than his

mistress, Mrs Jamieson. He had three little notes, which he carried in a large basket, in order to impress his

mistress with an idea of their great weight, though they might easily have gone into his waistcoat pocket.

Miss Matty and I quietly decided that we would have a previous engagement at home: it was the evening on

which Miss Matty usually made candlelighters of all the notes and letters of the week; for on Mondays her

accounts were always made straight not a penny owing from the week before; so, by a natural arrangement,

making candlelighters fell upon a Tuesday evening, and gave us a legitimate excuse for declining Mrs

Jamieson's invitation. But before our answer was written, in came Miss Pole, with an open note in her hand.

"So!" she said. "Ah! I see you have got your note, too. Better late than never. I could have told my Lady

"Yes," said Miss Matty, "we're asked for Tuesday evening. And perhaps you would just kindly bring your

work across and drink tea with us that night. It is my usual regular time for looking over the last week's bills,

and notes, and letters, and making candle lighters of them; but that does not seem quite reason enough for

saying I have a previous engagement at home, though I meant to make it do. Now, if you would come, my

"I don't know," replied Miss Pole. "Yes, I think I do," said she, rather briskly; and on seeing Miss Matty look

surprised, she added, "You see, one would not like Mrs Jamieson to think that anything she could do, or say,

was of consequence enough to give offence; it would be a kind of letting down of ourselves, that I, for one,

should not like. It would be too flattering to Mrs Jamieson if we allowed her to suppose that what she had

"Well! I suppose it is wrong to be hurt and annoyed so long about anything; and, perhaps, after all, she did

not mean to vex us. But I must say, I could not have brought myself to say the things Mrs Jamieson did about

"Oh, come! Miss Matty, you must go; you know our friend Mrs Jamieson is much more phlegmatic than most

people, and does not enter into the little delicacies of feeling which you possess in so remarkable a degree."

"I thought you possessed them, too, that day Mrs Jamieson called to tell us not to go," said Miss Matty

But Miss Pole, in addition to her delicacies of feeling, possessed a very smart cap, which she was anxious to

show to an admiring world; and so she seemed to forget all her angry words uttered not a fortnight before,

and to be ready to act on what she called the great Christian principle of "Forgive and forget"; and she

lectured dear Miss Matty so long on this head that she absolutely ended by assuring her it was her duty, as a

deceased rector's daughter, to buy a new cap and go to the party at Mrs Jamieson's. So "we were most happy

The expenditure on dress in Cranford was principally in that one article referred to. If the heads were buried

in smart new caps, the ladies were like ostriches, and cared not what became of their bodies. Old gowns,

white and venerable collars, any number of brooches, up and down and everywhere (some with dogs' eyes

painted in them; some that were like small pictureframes with mausoleums and weepingwillows neatly

executed in hair inside; some, again, with miniatures of ladies and gentlemen sweetly smiling out of a nest of

stiff muslin), old brooches for a permanent ornament, and new caps to suit the fashion of the day the ladies

of Cranford always dressed with chaste elegance and propriety, as Miss Barker once prettily expressed it.

And with three new caps, and a greater array of brooches than had ever been seen together at one time since

Cranford was a town, did Mrs Forrester, and Miss Matty, and Miss Pole appear on that memorable Tuesday

evening. I counted seven brooches myself on Miss Pole's dress. Two were fixed negligently in her cap (one

was a butterfly made of Scotch pebbles, which a vivid imagination might believe to be the real insect); one

fastened her net neckerchief; one her collar; one ornamented the front of her gown, midway between her

throat and waist; and another adorned the point of her stomacher. Where the seventh was I have forgotten, but

But I am getting on too fast, in describing the dresses of the company. I should first relate the gathering on

the way to Mrs Jamieson's. That lady lived in a large house just outside the town. A road which had known

what it was to be a street ran right before the house, which opened out upon it without any intervening garden

or court. Whatever the sun was about, he never shone on the front of that house. To be sure, the livingrooms

were at the back, looking on to a pleasant garden; the front windows only belonged to kitchens and

housekeepers' rooms, and pantries, and in one of them Mr Mulliner was reported to sit. Indeed, looking

askance, we often saw the back of a head covered with hair powder, which also extended itself over his

coatcollar down to his very waist; and this imposing back was always engaged in reading the ST JAMES'S

CHRONICLE, opened wide, which, in some degree, accounted for the length of time the said newspaper was

in reaching us equal subscribers with Mrs Jamieson, though, in right of her honourableness, she always had

the reading of it first. This very Tuesday, the delay in forwarding the last number had been particularly

aggravating; just when both Miss Pole and Miss Matty, the former more especially, had been wanting to see

it, in order to coach up the Court news ready for the evening's interview with aristocracy. Miss Pole told us

she had absolutely taken time by the forelock, and been dressed by five o'clock, in order to be ready if the ST

JAMES'S CHRONICLE should come in at the last moment the very ST JAMES'S CHRONICLE which the

powdered head was tranquilly and composedly reading as we passed the accustomed window this evening.

"The impudence of the man!" said Miss Pole, in a low indignant whisper. "I should like to ask him whether

We looked at her in admiration of the courage of her thought; for Mr Mulliner was an object of great awe to

all of us. He seemed never to have forgotten his condescension in coming to live at Cranford. Miss Jenkyns,

at times, had stood forth as the undaunted champion of her sex, and spoken to him on terms of equality; but

even Miss Jenkyns could get no higher. In his pleasantest and most gracious moods he looked like a sulky

cockatoo. He did not speak except in gruff monosyllables. He would wait in the hall when we begged him not

to wait, and then look deeply offended because we had kept him there, while, with trembling, hasty hands we

Miss Pole ventured on a small joke as we went upstairs, intended, though addressed to us, to afford Mr

Mulliner some slight amusement. We all smiled, in order to seem as if we felt at our ease, and timidly looked

for Mr Mulliner's sympathy. Not a muscle of that wooden face had relaxed; and we were grave in an instant.

Mrs Jamieson's drawingroom was cheerful; the evening sun came streaming into it, and the large square

window was clustered round with flowers. The furniture was white and gold; not the later style, Louis

Quatorze, I think they call it, all shells and twirls; no, Mrs Jamieson's chairs and tables had not a curve or

bend about them. The chair and table legs diminished as they neared the ground, and were straight and square

in all their corners. The chairs were all arow against the walls, with the exception of four or five which

stood in a circle round the fire. They were railed with white bars across the back and knobbed with gold;

neither the railings nor the knobs invited to ease. There was a japanned table devoted to literature, on which

lay a Bible, a Peerage, and a PrayerBook. There was another square Pembroke table dedicated to the Fine

Arts, on which were a kaleidoscope, conversationcards, puzzlecards (tied together to an interminable

length with faded pink satin ribbon), and a box painted in fond imitation of the drawings which decorate

teachests. Carlo lay on the worsted worked rug, and ungraciously barked at us as we entered. Mrs

Jamieson stood up, giving us each a torpid smile of welcome, and looking helplessly beyond us at Mr

Mulliner, as if she hoped he would place us in chairs, for, if he did not, she never could. I suppose he thought

we could find our way to the circle round the fire, which reminded me of Stonehenge, I don't know why.

Lady Glenmire came to the rescue of our hostess, and, somehow or other, we found ourselves for the first

time placed agreeably, and not formally, in Mrs Jamieson's house. Lady Glenmire, now we had time to look

at her, proved to be a bright little woman of middle age, who had been very pretty in the days of her youth,

and who was even yet very pleasantlooking. I saw Miss Pole appraising her dress in the first five minutes,

"My dear! ten pounds would have purchased every stitch she had on lace and all."

It was pleasant to suspect that a peeress could be poor, and partly reconciled us to the fact that her husband

had never sat in the House of Lords; which, when we first heard of it, seemed a kind of swindling us out of

We were all very silent at first. We were thinking what we could talk about, that should be high enough to

interest My Lady. There had been a rise in the price of sugar, which, as preservingtime was near, was a

piece of intelligence to all our housekeeping hearts, and would have been the natural topic if Lady Glenmire

had not been by. But we were not sure if the peerage ate preserves much less knew how they were made. At

last, Miss Pole, who had always a great deal of courage and SAVOIR FAIRE, spoke to Lady Glenmire, who

on her part had seemed just as much puzzled to know how to break the silence as we were.

"Has your ladyship been to Court lately?" asked she; and then gave a little glance round at us, half timid and

half triumphant, as much as to say, "See how judiciously I have chosen a subject befitting the rank of the

"I never was there in my life," said Lady Glenmire, with a broad Scotch accent, but in a very sweet voice.

And then, as if she had been too abrupt, she added: "We very seldom went to London only twice, in fact,

during all my married life; and before I was married my father had far too large a family" (fifth daughter of

Mr Campbell was in all our minds, I am sure) "to take us often from our home, even to Edinburgh. Ye'll have

been in Edinburgh, maybe?" said she, suddenly brightening up with the hope of a common interest. We had

none of us been there; but Miss Pole had an uncle who once had passed a night there, which was very

Mrs Jamieson, meanwhile, was absorbed in wonder why Mr Mulliner did not bring the tea; and at length the

We should have liked our tea, for we dined at an earlier hour than Mrs Jamieson. I suspect Mr Mulliner had

to finish the ST JAMES'S CHRONICLE before he chose to trouble himself about tea. His mistress fidgeted

and fidgeted, and kept saying, I can't think why Mulliner does not bring tea. I can't think what he can be

about." And Lady Glenmire at last grew quite impatient, but it was a pretty kind of impatience after all; and

she rang the bell rather sharply, on receiving a halfpermission from her sisterinlaw to do so. Mr Mulliner

appeared in dignified surprise. "Oh!" said Mrs Jamieson, "Lady Glenmire rang the bell; I believe it was for

In a few minutes tea was brought. Very delicate was the china, very old the plate, very thin the bread and

butter, and very small the lumps of sugar. Sugar was evidently Mrs Jamieson's favourite economy. I question

if the little filigree sugartongs, made something like scissors, could have opened themselves wide enough to

take up an honest, vulgar goodsized piece; and when I tried to seize two little minnikin pieces at once, so as

not to be detected in too many returns to the sugarbasin, they absolutely dropped one, with a little sharp

clatter, quite in a malicious and unnatural manner. But before this happened we had had a slight

disappointment. In the little silver jug was cream, in the larger one was milk. As soon as Mr Mulliner came

in, Carlo began to beg, which was a thing our manners forebade us to do, though I am sure we were just as

hungry; and Mrs Jamieson said she was certain we would excuse her if she gave her poor dumb Carlo his tea

first. She accordingly mixed a saucerful for him, and put it down for him to lap; and then she told us how

intelligent and sensible the dear little fellow was; he knew cream quite well, and constantly refused tea with

only milk in it: so the milk was left for us; but we silently thought we were quite as intelligent and sensible as

Carlo, and felt as if insult were added to injury when we were called upon to admire the gratitude evinced by

After tea we thawed down into commonlife subjects. We were thankful to Lady Glenmire for having

proposed some more bread and butter, and this mutual want made us better acquainted with her than we

should ever have been with talking about the Court, though Miss Pole did say she had hoped to know how the

The friendship begun over bread and butter extended on to cards. Lady Glenmire played Preference to

admiration, and was a complete authority as to Ombre and Quadrille. Even Miss Pole quite forgot to say "my

lady," and "your ladyship," and said "Basto! ma'am"; "you have Spadille, I believe," just as quietly as if we

had never held the great Cranford Parliament on the subject of the proper mode of addressing a peeress.

As a proof of how thoroughly we had forgotten that we were in the presence of one who might have sat down

to tea with a coronet, instead of a cap, on her head, Mrs Forrester related a curious little fact to Lady

Glenmire an anecdote known to the circle of her intimate friends, but of which even Mrs Jamieson was not

aware. It related to some fine old lace, the sole relic of better days, which Lady Glenmire was admiring on

"Yes," said that lady, "such lace cannot be got now for either love or money; made by the nuns abroad, they

tell me. They say that they can't make it now even there. But perhaps they can, now they've passed the

Catholic Emancipation Bill. I should not wonder. But, in the meantime, I treasure up my lace very much. I

daren't even trust the washing of it to my maid" (the little charity schoolgirl I have named before, but who

sounded well as "my maid"). "I always wash it myself. And once it had a narrow escape. Of course, your

ladyship knows that such lace must never be starched or ironed. Some people wash it in sugar and water, and

some in coffee, to make it the right yellow colour; but I myself have a very good receipt for washing it in

milk, which stiffens it enough, and gives it a very good creamy colour. Well, ma'am, I had tacked it together

(and the beauty of this fine lace is that, when it is wet, it goes into a very little space), and put it to soak in

milk, when, unfortunately, I left the room; on my return, I found pussy on the table, looking very like a thief,

but gulping very uncomfortably, as if she was halfchocked with something she wanted to swallow and could

not. And, would you believe it? At first I pitied her, and said 'Poor pussy! poor pussy!' till, all at once, I

looked and saw the cup of milk empty cleaned out! 'You naughty cat!' said I, and I believe I was provoked

enough to give her a slap, which did no good, but only helped the lace down just as one slaps a choking

child on the back. I could have cried, I was so vexed; but I determined I would not give the lace up without a

struggle for it. I hoped the lace might disagree with her, at any rate; but it would have been too much for Job,

if he had seen, as I did, that cat come in, quite placid and purring, not a quarter of an hour after, and almost

expecting to be stroked. 'No, pussy!' said I, 'if you have any conscience you ought not to expect that!' And

then a thought struck me; and I rang the bell for my maid, and sent her to Mr Hoggins, with my compliments,

and would he be kind enough to lend me one of his topboots for an hour? I did not think there was anything

odd in the message; but Jenny said the young men in the surgery laughed as if they would be ill at my

wanting a topboot. When it came, Jenny and I put pussy in, with her forefeet straight down, so that they

were fastened, and could not scratch, and we gave her a teaspoonful of currentjelly in which (your ladyship

must excuse me) I had mixed some tartar emetic. I shall never forget how anxious I was for the next half

hour. I took pussy to my own room, and spread a clean towel on the floor. I could have kissed her when she

returned the lace to sight, very much as it had gone down. Jenny had boiling water ready, and we soaked it

and soaked it, and spread it on a lavender bush in the sun before I could touch it again, even to put it in

milk. But now your ladyship would never guess that it had been in pussy's inside."

We found out, in the course of the evening, that Lady Glenmire was going to pay Mrs Jamieson a long visit,

as she had given up her apartments in Edinburgh, and had no ties to take her back there in a hurry. On the

whole, we were rather glad to hear this, for she had made a pleasant impression upon us; and it was also very

comfortable to find, from things which dropped out in the course of conversation, that, in addition to many

"Don't you find it very unpleasant walking?" asked Mrs Jamieson, as our respective servants were announced.

It was a pretty regular question from Mrs Jamieson, who had her own carriage in the coach house, and

always went out in a sedanchair to the very shortest distances. The answers were nearly as much a matter of

"Oh dear, no! it is so pleasant and still at night!" "Such a refreshment after the excitement of a party!" "The

"Not very," replied Miss Matty, rather confused at the moment to remember which was astronomy and which

was astrology but the answer was true under either circumstance, for she read, and was slightly alarmed at

Francis Moore's astrological predictions; and, as to astronomy, in a private and confidential conversation, she

had told me she never could believe that the earth was moving constantly, and that she would not believe it if

In our pattens we picked our way home with extra care that night, so refined and delicate were our

SOON after the events of which I gave an account in my last paper, I was summoned home by my father's

illness; and for a time I forgot, in anxiety about him, to wonder how my dear friends at Cranford were getting

on, or how Lady Glenmire could reconcile herself to the dulness of the long visit which she was still paying

to her sisterinlaw, Mrs Jamieson. When my father grew a little stronger I accompanied him to the seaside,

so that altogether I seemed banished from Cranford, and was deprived of the opportunity of hearing any

Late in November when we had returned home again, and my father was once more in good health I

received a letter from Miss Matty; and a very mysterious letter it was. She began many sentences without

ending them, running them one into another, in much the same confused sort of way in which written words

run together on blottingpaper. All I could make out was that, if my father was better (which she hoped he

was), and would take warning and wear a greatcoat from Michaelmas to Ladyday, if turbans were in

fashion, could I tell her? Such a piece of gaiety was going to happen as had not been seen or known of since

Wombwell's lions came, when one of them ate a little child's arm; and she was, perhaps, too old to care about

dress, but a new cap she must have; and, having heard that turbans were worn, and some of the county

families likely to come, she would like to look tidy, if I would bring her a cap from the milliner I employed;

and oh, dear! how careless of her to forget that she wrote to beg I would come and pay her a visit next

Tuesday; when she hoped to have something to offer me in the way of amusement, which she would not now

more particularly describe, only seagreen was her favourite colour. So she ended her letter; but in a P.S. she

added, she thought she might as well tell me what was the peculiar attraction to Cranford just now; Signor

Brunoni was going to exhibit his wonderful magic in the Cranford Assembly Rooms on Wednesday and

I was very glad to accept the invitation from my dear Miss Matty, independently of the conjuror, and most

particularly anxious to prevent her from disfiguring her small, gentle, mousey face with a great Saracen's

head turban; and accordingly, I bought her a pretty, neat, middleaged cap, which, however, was rather a

disappointment to her when, on my arrival, she followed me into my bedroom, ostensibly to poke the fire, but

in reality, I do believe, to see if the seagreen turban was not inside the capbox with which I had travelled.

It was in vain that I twirled the cap round on my hand to exhibit back and side fronts: her heart had been set

upon a turban, and all she could do was to say, with resignation in her look and voice

"I am sure you did your best, my dear. It is just like the caps all the ladies in Cranford are wearing, and they

have had theirs for a year, I dare say. I should have liked something newer, I confess something more like

the turbans Miss Betty Barker tells me Queen Adelaide wears; but it is very pretty, my dear. And I dare say

lavender will wear better than seagreen. Well, after all, what is dress, that we should care anything about it?

You'll tell me if you want anything, my dear. Here is the bell. I suppose turbans have not got down to

So saying, the dear old lady gently bemoaned herself out of the room, leaving me to dress for the evening,

when, as she informed me, she expected Miss Pole and Mrs Forrester, and she hoped I should not feel myself

too much tired to join the party. Of course I should not; and I made some haste to unpack and arrange my

dress; but, with all my speed, I heard the arrivals and the buzz of conversation in the next room before I was

ready. Just as I opened the door, I caught the words, "I was foolish to expect anything very genteel out of the

Drumble shops; poor girl! she did her best, I've no doubt." But, for all that, I had rather that she blamed

Miss Pole was always the person, in the trio of Cranford ladies now assembled, to have had adventures. She

was in the habit of spending the morning in rambling from shop to shop, not to purchase anything (except an

occasional reel of cotton or a piece of tape), but to see the new articles and report upon them, and to collect

all the stray pieces of intelligence in the town. She had a way, too, of demurely popping hither and thither

into all sorts of places to gratify her curiosity on any point a way which, if she had not looked so very

genteel and prim, might have been considered impertinent. And now, by the expressive way in which she

cleared her throat, and waited for all minor subjects (such as caps and turbans) to be cleared off the course,

we knew she had something very particular to relate, when the due pause came and I defy any people

possessed of common modesty to keep up a conversation long, where one among them sits up aloft in silence,

looking down upon all the things they chance to say as trivial and contemptible compared to what they could

"As I was stepping out of Gordon's shop today, I chanced to go into the 'George' (my Betty has a

secondcousin who is chambermaid there, and I thought Betty would like to hear how she was), and, not

seeing anyone about, I strolled up the staircase, and found myself in the passage leading to the Assembly

Room (you and I remember the Assembly Room, I am sure, Miss Matty! and the minuets de la cour!); so I

went on, not thinking of what I was about, when, all at once, I perceived that I was in the middle of the

preparations for tomorrow night the room being divided with great clothesmaids, over which Crosby's

men were tacking red flannel; very dark and odd it seemed; it quite bewildered me, and I was going on

behind the screens, in my absence of mind, when a gentleman (quite the gentleman, I can assure you) stepped

forwards and asked if I had any business he could arrange for me. He spoke such pretty broken English, I

could not help thinking of Thaddeus of Warsaw, and the Hungarian Brothers, and Santo Sebastiani; and while

I was busy picturing his past life to myself, he had bowed me out of the room. But wait a minute! You have

not heard half my story yet! I was going downstairs, when who should I meet but Betty's secondcousin. So,

of course, I stopped to speak to her for Betty's sake; and she told me that I had really seen the conjuror the

gentleman who spoke broken English was Signor Brunoni himself. Just at this moment he passed us on the

stairs, making such a graceful bow! in reply to which I dropped a curtsey all foreigners have such polite

manners, one catches something of it. But when he had gone downstairs, I bethought me that I had dropped

my glove in the Assembly Room (it was safe in my muff all the time, but I never found it till afterwards); so I

went back, and, just as I was creeping up the passage left on one side of the great screen that goes nearly

across the room, who should I see but the very same gentleman that had met me before, and passed me on the

stairs, coming now forwards from the inner part of the room, to which there is no entrance you remember,

Miss Matty and just repeating, in his pretty broken English, the inquiry if I had any business there I don't

mean that he put it quite so bluntly, but he seemed very determined that I should not pass the screen so, of

course, I explained about my glove, which, curiously enough, I found at that very moment."

Miss Pole, then, had seen the conjuror the real, live conjuror! and numerous were the questions we all

asked her. "Had he a beard?" "Was he young, or old?" "Fair, or dark?" "Did he look" (unable to shape my

question prudently, I put it in another form) "How did he look?" In short, Miss Pole was the heroine of the

evening, owing to her morning's encounter. If she was not the rose (that is to say the conjuror) she had been

Conjuration, sleight of hand, magic, witchcraft, were the subjects of the evening. Miss Pole was slightly

sceptical, and inclined to think there might be a scientific solution found for even the proceedings of the

Witch of Endor. Mrs Forrester believed everything, from ghosts to deathwatches. Miss Matty ranged

between the two always convinced by the last speaker. I think she was naturally more inclined to Mrs

Forrester's side, but a desire of proving herself a worthy sister to Miss Jenkyns kept her equally balanced

Miss Jenkyns, who would never allow a servant to call the little rolls of tallow that formed themselves round

candles "windingsheets," but insisted on their being spoken of as "roleypoleys!" A sister of hers to be

After tea, I was despatched downstairs into the diningparlour for that volume of the old Encyclopaedia

which contained the nouns beginning with C, in order that Miss Pole might prime herself with scientific

explanations for the tricks of the following evening. It spoilt the pool at Preference which Miss Matty and

Mrs Forrester had been looking forward to, for Miss Pole became so much absorbed in her subject, and the

plates by which it was illustrated, that we felt it would be cruel to disturb her otherwise than by one or two

welltimed yawns, which I threw in now and then, for I was really touched by the meek way in which the

two ladies were bearing their disappointment. But Miss Pole only read the more zealously, imparting to us no

"Ah! I see; I comprehend perfectly. A represents the ball. Put A between B and D no! between C and F, and

turn the second joint of the third finger of your left hand over the wrist of your right H. Very clear indeed!

My dear Mrs Forrester, conjuring and witchcraft is a mere affair of the alphabet. Do let me read you this one

Mrs Forrester implored Miss Pole to spare her, saying, from a child upwards, she never could understand

being read aloud to; and I dropped the pack of cards, which I had been shuffling very audibly, and by this

discreet movement I obliged Miss Pole to perceive that Preference was to have been the order of the evening,

and to propose, rather unwillingly, that the pool should commence. The pleasant brightness that stole over the

other two ladies' faces on this! Miss Matty had one or two twinges of selfreproach for having interrupted

Miss Pole in her studies: and did not remember her cards well, or give her full attention to the game, until she

had soothed her conscience by offering to lend the volume of the Encyclopaedia to Miss Pole, who accepted

it thankfully, and said Betty should take it home when she came with the lantern.

The next evening we were all in a little gentle flutter at the idea of the gaiety before us. Miss Matty went up

to dress betimes, and hurried me until I was ready, when we found we had an houranda half to wait

before the "doors opened at seven precisely." And we had only twenty yards to go! However, as Miss Matty

said, it would not do to get too much absorbed in anything, and forget the time; so she thought we had better

sit quietly, without lighting the candles, till five minutes to seven. So Miss Matty dozed, and I knitted.

At length we set off; and at the door under the carriageway at the "George," we met Mrs Forrester and Miss

Pole: the latter was discussing the subject of the evening with more vehemence than ever, and throwing X's

and B's at our heads like hailstones. She had even copied one or two of the "receipts" as she called them

for the different tricks, on backs of letters, ready to explain and to detect Signor Brunoni's arts.

We went into the cloakroom adjoining the Assembly Room; Miss Matty gave a sigh or two to her departed

youth, and the remembrance of the last time she had been there, as she adjusted her pretty new cap before the

strange, quaint old mirror in the cloakroom. The Assembly Room had been added to the inn, about a

hundred years before, by the different county families, who met together there once a month during the

winter to dance and play at cards. Many a county beauty had first swung through the minuet that she

afterwards danced before Queen Charlotte in this very room. It was said that one of the Gunnings had graced

the apartment with her beauty; it was certain that a rich and beautiful widow, Lady Williams, had here been

smitten with the noble figure of a young artist, who was staying with some family in the neighbourhood for

professional purposes, and accompanied his patrons to the Cranford Assembly. And a pretty bargain poor

Lady Williams had of her handsome husband, if all tales were true. Now, no beauty blushed and dimpled

along the sides of the Cranford Assembly Room; no handsome artist won hearts by his bow, CHAPEAU

BRAS in hand; the old room was dingy; the salmoncoloured paint had faded into a drab; great pieces of

plaster had chipped off from the fine wreaths and festoons on its walls; but still a mouldy odour of aristocracy

lingered about the place, and a dusty recollection of the days that were gone made Miss Matty and Mrs

Forrester bridle up as they entered, and walk mincingly up the room, as if there were a number of genteel

observers, instead of two little boys with a stick of toffee between them with which to beguile the time.

We stopped short at the second front row; I could hardly understand why, until I heard Miss Pole ask a stray

waiter if any of the county families were expected; and when he shook his head, and believed not, Mrs

Forrester and Miss Matty moved forwards, and our party represented a conversational square. The front row

was soon augmented and enriched by Lady Glenmire and Mrs Jamieson. We six occupied the two front rows,

and our aristocratic seclusion was respected by the groups of shopkeepers who strayed in from time to time

and huddled together on the back benches. At least I conjectured so, from the noise they made, and the

sonorous bumps they gave in sitting down; but when, in weariness of the obstinate green curtain that would

not draw up, but would stare at me with two odd eyes, seen through holes, as in the old tapestry story, I

would fain have looked round at the merry chattering people behind me, Miss Pole clutched my arm, and

begged me not to turn, for "it was not the thing." What "the thing" was, I never could find out, but it must

have been something eminently dull and tiresome. However, we all sat eyes right, square front, gazing at the

tantalising curtain, and hardly speaking intelligibly, we were so afraid of being caught in the vulgarity of

making any noise in a place of public amusement. Mrs Jamieson was the most fortunate, for she fell asleep.

At length the eyes disappeared the curtain quivered one side went up before the other, which stuck fast; it

was dropped again, and, with a fresh effort, and a vigorous pull from some unseen hand, it flew up, revealing

to our sight a magnificent gentleman in the Turkish costume, seated before a little table, gazing at us (I should

have said with the same eyes that I had last seen through the hole in the curtain) with calm and

condescending dignity, "like a being of another sphere," as I heard a sentimental voice ejaculate behind me.

"That's not Signor Brunoni!" said Miss Pole decidedly; and so audibly that I am sure he heard, for he glanced

down over his flowing beard at our party with an air of mute reproach. "Signor Brunoni had no beard but

perhaps he'll come soon." So she lulled herself into patience. Meanwhile, Miss Matty had reconnoitred

through her eyeglass, wiped it, and looked again. Then she turned round, and said to me, in a kind, mild,

But we had no time for more conversation. The Grand Turk, as Miss Pole chose to call him, arose and

"I don't believe him!" exclaimed Miss Pole, in a defiant manner. He looked at her again, with the same

dignified upbraiding in his countenance. "I don't!" she repeated more positively than ever. "Signor Brunoni

had not got that muffy sort of thing about his chin, but looked like a closeshaved Christian gentleman."

Miss Pole's energetic speeches had the good effect of wakening up Mrs Jamieson, who opened her eyes wide,

in sign of the deepest attention a proceeding which silenced Miss Pole and encouraged the Grand Turk to

proceed, which he did in very broken English so broken that there was no cohesion between the parts of his

sentences; a fact which he himself perceived at last, and so left off speaking and proceeded to action.

Now we WERE astonished. How he did his tricks I could not imagine; no, not even when Miss Pole pulled

out her pieces of paper and began reading aloud or at least in a very audible whisper the separate

"receipts" for the most common of his tricks. If ever I saw a man frown and look enraged, I saw the Grand

Turk frown at Miss Pole; but, as she said, what could be expected but unchristian looks from a Mussulman?

If Miss Pole were sceptical, and more engrossed with her receipts and diagrams than with his tricks, Miss

Matty and Mrs Forrester were mystified and perplexed to the highest degree. Mrs Jamieson kept taking her

spectacles off and wiping them, as if she thought it was something defective in them which made the

legerdemain; and Lady Glenmire, who had seen many curious sights in Edinburgh, was very much struck

with the tricks, and would not at all agree with Miss Pole, who declared that anybody could do them with a

little practice, and that she would, herself, undertake to do all he did, with two hours given to study the

At last Miss Matty and Mrs Forrester became perfectly awestricken. They whispered together. I sat just

behind them, so I could not help hearing what they were saying. Miss Matty asked Mrs Forrester "if she

thought it was quite right to have come to see such things? She could not help fearing they were lending

encouragement to something that was not quite" A little shake of the head filled up the blank. Mrs Forrester

replied, that the same thought had crossed her mind; she too was feeling very uncomfortable, it was so very

strange. She was quite certain that it was her pocket handkerchief which was in that loaf just now; and it had

been in her own hand not five minutes before. She wondered who had furnished the bread? She was sure it

could not be Dakin, because he was the churchwarden. Suddenly Miss Matty halfturned towards me

"Will you look, my dear you are a stranger in the town, and it won't give rise to unpleasant reports will

you just look round and see if the rector is here? If he is, I think we may conclude that this wonderful man is

I looked, and I saw the tall, thin, dry, dusty rector, sitting surrounded by National School boys, guarded by

troops of his own sex from any approach of the many Cranford spinsters. His kind face was all agape with

broad smiles, and the boys around him were in chinks of laughing. I told Miss Matty that the Church was

I have never named Mr Hayter, the rector, because I, as a wellto do and happy young woman, never came

in contact with him. He was an old bachelor, but as afraid of matrimonial reports getting abroad about him as

any girl of eighteen: and he would rush into a shop or dive down an entry, sooner than encounter any of the

Cranford ladies in the street; and, as for the Preference parties, I did not wonder at his not accepting

invitations to them. To tell the truth, I always suspected Miss Pole of having given very vigorous chase to Mr

Hayter when he first came to Cranford; and not the less, because now she appeared to share so vividly in his

dread lest her name should ever be coupled with his. He found all his interests among the poor and helpless;

he had treated the National School boys this very night to the performance; and virtue was for once its own

reward, for they guarded him right and left, and clung round him as if he had been the queenbee and they

the swarm. He felt so safe in their environment that he could even afford to give our party a bow as we filed

out. Miss Pole ignored his presence, and pretended to be absorbed in convincing us that we had been cheated,

I THINK a series of circumstances dated from Signor Brunoni's visit to Cranford, which seemed at the time

connected in our minds with him, though I don't know that he had anything really to do with them. All at

once all sorts of uncomfortable rumours got afloat in the town. There were one or two robberies real BONA

FIDE robberies; men had up before the magistrates and committed for trial and that seemed to make us all

afraid of being robbed; and for a long time, at Miss Matty's, I know, we used to make a regular expedition all

round the kitchens and cellars every night, Miss Matty leading the way, armed with the poker, I following

with the hearthbrush, and Martha carrying the shovel and fireirons with which to sound the alarm; and by

the accidental hitting together of them she often frightened us so much that we bolted ourselves up, all three

together, in the backkitchen, or storeroom, or wherever we happened to be, till, when our affright was

over, we recollected ourselves and set out afresh with double valiance. By day we heard strange stories from

the shopkeepers and cottagers, of carts that went about in the dead of night, drawn by horses shod with felt,

and guarded by men in dark clothes, going round the town, no doubt in search of some unwatched house or

Miss Pole, who affected great bravery herself, was the principal person to collect and arrange these reports so

as to make them assume their most fearful aspect. But we discovered that she had begged one of Mr

Hoggins's wornout hats to hang up in her lobby, and we (at least I) had doubts as to whether she really

would enjoy the little adventure of having her house broken into, as she protested she should. Miss Matty

made no secret of being an arrant coward, but she went regularly through her housekeeper's duty of

inspection only the hour for this became earlier and earlier, till at last we went the rounds at halfpast six,

and Miss Matty adjourned to bed soon after seven, "in order to get the night over the sooner."

Cranford had so long piqued itself on being an honest and moral town that it had grown to fancy itself too

genteel and wellbred to be otherwise, and felt the stain upon its character at this time doubly. But we

comforted ourselves with the assurance which we gave to each other that the robberies could never have been

committed by any Cranford person; it must have been a stranger or strangers who brought this disgrace upon

the town, and occasioned as many precautions as if we were living among the Red Indians or the French.

This last comparison of our nightly state of defence and fortification was made by Mrs Forrester, whose

father had served under General Burgoyne in the American war, and whose husband had fought the French in

Spain. She indeed inclined to the idea that, in some way, the French were connected with the small thefts,

which were ascertained facts, and the burglaries and highway robberies, which were rumours. She had been

deeply impressed with the idea of French spies at some time in her life; and the notion could never be fairly

eradicated, but sprang up again from time to time. And now her theory was this: The Cranford people

respected themselves too much, and were too grateful to the aristocracy who were so kind as to live near the

town, ever to disgrace their bringing up by being dishonest or immoral; therefore, we must believe that the

robbers were strangers if strangers, why not foreigners? if foreigners, who so likely as the French? Signor

Brunoni spoke broken English like a Frenchman; and, though he wore a turban like a Turk, Mrs Forrester had

seen a print of Madame de Stael with a turban on, and another of Mr Denon in just such a dress as that in

which the conjuror had made his appearance, showing clearly that the French, as well as the Turks, wore

turbans. There could be no doubt Signor Brunoni was a Frenchman a French spy come to discover the weak

and undefended places of England, and doubtless he had his accomplices. For her part, she, Mrs Forrester,

had always had her own opinion of Miss Pole's adventure at the "George Inn" seeing two men where only

one was believed to be. French people had ways and means which, she was thankful to say, the English knew

nothing about; and she had never felt quite easy in her mind about going to see that conjuror it was rather

too much like a forbidden thing, though the rector was there. In short, Mrs Forrester grew more excited than

we had ever known her before, and, being an officer's daughter and widow, we looked up to her opinion, of

Really I do not know how much was true or false in the reports which flew about like wildfire just at this

time; but it seemed to me then that there was every reason to believe that at Mardon (a small town about eight

miles from Cranford) houses and shops were entered by holes made in the walls, the bricks being silently

carried away in the dead of the night, and all done so quietly that no sound was heard either in or out of the

house. Miss Matty gave it up in despair when she heard of this. "What was the use," said she, "of locks and

bolts, and bells to the windows, and going round the house every night? That last trick was fit for a conjuror.

One afternoon, about five o'clock, we were startled by a hasty knock at the door. Miss Matty bade me run and

tell Martha on no account to open the door till she (Miss Matty) had reconnoitred through the window; and

she armed herself with a footstool to drop down on the head of the visitor, in case he should show a face

covered with black crape, as he looked up in answer to her inquiry of who was there. But it was nobody but

Miss Pole and Betty. The former came upstairs, carrying a little handbasket, and she was evidently in a state

"Take care of that!" said she to me, as I offered to relieve her of her basket. "It's my plate. I am sure there is a

plan to rob my house tonight. I am come to throw myself on your hospitality, Miss Matty. Betty is going to

sleep with her cousin at the 'George.' I can sit up here all night if you will allow me; but my house is so far

from any neighbours, and I don't believe we could be heard if we screamed ever so!"

"But," said Miss Matty, "what has alarmed you so much? Have you seen any men lurking about the house?"

"Oh, yes!" answered Miss Pole. "Two very badlooking men have gone three times past the house, very

slowly; and an Irish beggarwoman came not halfanhour ago, and all but forced herself in past Betty,

saying her children were starving, and she must speak to the mistress. You see, she said 'mistress,' though

there was a hat hanging up in the hall, and it would have been more natural to have said 'master.' But Betty

shut the door in her face, and came up to me, and we got the spoons together, and sat in the parlourwindow

watching till we saw Thomas Jones going from his work, when we called to him and asked him to take care

We might have triumphed over Miss Pole, who had professed such bravery until she was frightened; but we

were too glad to perceive that she shared in the weaknesses of humanity to exult over her; and I gave up my

room to her very willingly, and shared Miss Matty's bed for the night. But before we retired, the two ladies

rummaged up, out of the recesses of their memory, such horrid stories of robbery and murder that I quite

quaked in my shoes. Miss Pole was evidently anxious to prove that such terrible events had occurred within

her experience that she was justified in her sudden panic; and Miss Matty did not like to be outdone, and

capped every story with one yet more horrible, till it reminded me oddly enough, of an old story I had read

somewhere, of a nightingale and a musician, who strove one against the other which could produce the most

One of the stories that haunted me for a long time afterwards was of a girl who was left in charge of a great

house in Cumberland on some particular fairday, when the other servants all went off to the gaieties. The

family were away in London, and a pedlar came by, and asked to leave his large and heavy pack in the

kitchen, saying he would call for it again at night; and the girl (a gamekeeper's daughter), roaming about in

search of amusement, chanced to hit upon a gun hanging up in the hall, and took it down to look at the

chasing; and it went off through the open kitchen door, hit the pack, and a slow dark thread of blood came

oozing out. (How Miss Pole enjoyed this part of the story, dwelling on each word as if she loved it!) She

rather hurried over the further account of the girl's bravery, and I have but a confused idea that, somehow, she

baffled the robbers with Italian irons, heated red hot, and then restored to blackness by being dipped in

We parted for the night with an awestricken wonder as to what we should hear of in the morning and, on

my part, with a vehement desire for the night to be over and gone: I was so afraid lest the robbers should have

seen, from some dark lurkingplace, that Miss Pole had carried off her plate, and thus have a double motive

But until Lady Glenmire came to call next day we heard of nothing unusual. The kitchen fireirons were in

exactly the same position against the back door as when Martha and I had skilfully piled them up, like

spillikins, ready to fall with an awful clatter if only a cat had touched the outside panels. I had wondered what

we should all do if thus awakened and alarmed, and had proposed to Miss Matty that we should cover up our

faces under the bedclothes so that there should be no danger of the robbers thinking that we could identify

them; but Miss Matty, who was trembling very much, scouted this idea, and said we owed it to society to

apprehend them, and that she should certainly do her best to lay hold of them and lock them up in the garret

When Lady Glenmire came, we almost felt jealous of her. Mrs Jamieson's house had really been attacked; at

least there were men's footsteps to be seen on the flower borders, underneath the kitchen windows, "where

nae men should be;" and Carlo had barked all through the night as if strangers were abroad. Mrs Jamieson

had been awakened by Lady Glenmire, and they had rung the bell which communicated with Mr Mulliner's

room in the third storey, and when his nightcapped head had appeared over the bannisters, in answer to the

summons, they had told him of their alarm, and the reasons for it; whereupon he retreated into his bedroom,

and locked the door (for fear of draughts, as he informed them in the morning), and opened the window, and

called out valiantly to say, if the supposed robbers would come to him he would fight them; but, as Lady

Glenmire observed, that was but poor comfort, since they would have to pass by Mrs Jamieson's room and

her own before they could reach him, and must be of a very pugnacious disposition indeed if they neglected

the opportunities of robbery presented by the unguarded lower storeys, to go up to a garret, and there force a

door in order to get at the champion of the house. Lady Glenmire, after waiting and listening for some time in

the drawing room, had proposed to Mrs Jamieson that they should go to bed; but that lady said she should

not feel comfortable unless she sat up and watched; and, accordingly, she packed herself warmly up on the

sofa, where she was found by the housemaid, when she came into the room at six o'clock, fast asleep; but

When Miss Pole heard of this, she nodded her head in great satisfaction. She had been sure we should hear of

something happening in Cranford that night; and we had heard. It was clear enough they had first proposed to

attack her house; but when they saw that she and Betty were on their guard, and had carried off the plate, they

had changed their tactics and gone to Mrs Jamieson's, and no one knew what might have happened if Carlo

Poor Carlo! his barking days were nearly over. Whether the gang who infested the neighbourhood were afraid

of him, or whether they were revengeful enough, for the way in which he had baffled them on the night in

question, to poison him; or whether, as some among the more uneducated people thought, he died of

apoplexy, brought on by too much feeding and too little exercise; at any rate, it is certain that, two days after

this eventful night, Carlo was found dead, with his poor legs stretched out stiff in the attitude of running, as if

We were all sorry for Carlo, the old familiar friend who had snapped at us for so many years; and the

mysterious mode of his death made us very uncomfortable. Could Signor Brunoni be at the bottom of this?

He had apparently killed a canary with only a word of command; his will seemed of deadly force; who knew

but what he might yet be lingering in the neighbourhood willing all sorts of awful things!

We whispered these fancies among ourselves in the evenings; but in the mornings our courage came back

with the daylight, and in a week's time we had got over the shock of Carlo's death; all but Mrs Jamieson. She,

poor thing, felt it as she had felt no event since her husband's death; indeed, Miss Pole said, that as the

Honourable Mr Jamieson drank a good deal, and occasioned her much uneasiness, it was possible that Carlo's

death might be the greater affliction. But there was always a tinge of cynicism in Miss Pole's remarks.

However, one thing was clear and certain it was necessary for Mrs Jamieson to have some change of scene;

and Mr Mulliner was very impressive on this point, shaking his head whenever we inquired after his mistress,

and speaking of her loss of appetite and bad nights very ominously; and with justice too, for if she had two

characteristics in her natural state of health they were a facility of eating and sleeping. If she could neither eat

Lady Glenmire (who had evidently taken very kindly to Cranford) did not like the idea of Mrs Jamieson's

going to Cheltenham, and more than once insinuated pretty plainly that it was Mr Mulliner's doing, who had

been much alarmed on the occasion of the house being attacked, and since had said, more than once, that he

felt it a very responsible charge to have to defend so many women. Be that as it might, Mrs Jamieson went to

Cheltenham, escorted by Mr Mulliner; and Lady Glenmire remained in possession of the house, her

ostensible office being to take care that the maidservants did not pick up followers. She made a very

pleasantlooking dragon; and, as soon as it was arranged for her stay in Cranford, she found out that Mrs

Jamieson's visit to Cheltenham was just the best thing in the world. She had let her house in Edinburgh, and

was for the time houseless, so the charge of her sisterinlaw's comfortable abode was very convenient and

Miss Pole was very much inclined to instal herself as a heroine, because of the decided steps she had taken in

flying from the two men and one woman, whom she entitled "that murderous gang." She described their

appearance in glowing colours, and I noticed that every time she went over the story some fresh trait of

villainy was added to their appearance. One was tall he grew to be gigantic in height before we had done

with him; he of course had black hair and byandby it hung in elflocks over his forehead and down his

back. The other was short and broad and a hump sprouted out on his shoulder before we heard the last of

him; he had red hair which deepened into carroty; and she was almost sure he had a cast in the eye a

decided squint. As for the woman, her eyes glared, and she was masculinelooking a perfect virago; most

probably a man dressed in woman's clothes; afterwards, we heard of a beard on her chin, and a manly voice

If Miss Pole was delighted to recount the events of that afternoon to all inquirers, others were not so proud of

their adventures in the robbery line. Mr Hoggins, the surgeon, had been attacked at his own door by two

ruffians, who were concealed in the shadow of the porch, and so effectually silenced him that he was robbed

in the interval between ringing his bell and the servant's answering it. Miss Pole was sure it would turn out

that this robbery had been commited by "her men," and went the very day she heard the report to have her

teeth examined, and to question Mr Hoggins. She came to us afterwards; so we heard what she had heard,

straight and direct from the source, while we were yet in the excitement and flutter of the agitation caused by

"Well!" said Miss Pole, sitting down with the decision of a person who has made up her mind as to the nature

of life and the world (and such people never tread lightly, or seat themselves without a bump), "well, Miss

Matty! men will be men. Every mother's son of them wishes to be considered Samson and Solomon rolled

into one too strong ever to be beaten or discomfited too wise ever to be outwitted. If you will notice, they

have always foreseen events, though they never tell one for one's warning before the events happen. My

She had talked herself out of breath, and we should have been very glad to fill up the necessary pause as

chorus, but we did not exactly know what to say, or which man had suggested this diatribe against the sex; so

we only joined in generally, with a grave shake of the head, and a soft murmur of "They are very

"Now, only think," said she. "There, I have undergone the risk of having one of my remaining teeth drawn

(for one is terribly at the mercy of any surgeondentist; and I, for one, always speak them fair till I have got

my mouth out of their clutches), and, after all, Mr Hoggins is too much of a man to own that he was robbed

"Don't tell me!" Miss Pole exclaimed, angry that we could be for a moment imposed upon. "I believe he was

robbed, just as Betty told me, and he is ashamed to own it; and, to be sure, it was very silly of him to be

robbed just at his own door; I daresay he feels that such a thing won't raise him in the eyes of Cranford

society, and is anxious to conceal it but he need not have tried to impose upon me, by saying I must have

heard an exaggerated account of some petty theft of a neck of mutton, which, it seems, was stolen out of the

safe in his yard last week; he had the impertinence to add, he believed that that was taken by the cat. I have

no doubt, if I could get at the bottom of it, it was that Irishman dressed up in woman's clothes, who came

After we had duly condemned the want of candour which Mr Hoggins had evinced, and abused men in

general, taking him for the representative and type, we got round to the subject about which we had been

talking when Miss Pole came in; namely, how far, in the present disturbed state of the country, we could

venture to accept an invitation which Miss Matty had just received from Mrs Forrester, to come as usual and

keep the anniversary of her weddingday by drinking tea with her at five o'clock, and playing a quiet pool

afterwards. Mrs Forrester had said that she asked us with some diffidence, because the roads were, she feared,

very unsafe. But she suggested that perhaps one of us would not object to take the sedan, and that the others,

by walking briskly, might keep up with the long trot of the chairmen, and so we might all arrive safely at

Over Place, a suburb of the town. (No; that is too large an expression: a small cluster of houses separated

from Cranford by about two hundred yards of a dark and lonely lane.) There was no doubt but that a similar

note was awaiting Miss Pole at home; so her call was a very fortunate affair, as it enabled us to consult

together. We would all much rather have declined this invitation; but we felt that it would not be quite kind to

Mrs Forrester, who would otherwise be left to a solitary retrospect of her not very happy or fortunate life.

Miss Matty and Miss Pole had been visitors on this occasion for many years, and now they gallantly

determined to nail their colours to the mast, and to go through Darkness Lane rather than fail in loyalty to

But when the evening came, Miss Matty (for it was she who was voted into the chair, as she had a cold),

before being shut down in the sedan, like jackinabox, implored the chairmen, whatever might befall, not

to run away and leave her fastened up there, to be murdered; and even after they had promised, I saw her

tighten her features into the stern determination of a martyr, and she gave me a melancholy and ominous

shake of the head through the glass. However, we got there safely, only rather out of breath, for it was who

could trot hardest through Darkness Lane, and I am afraid poor Miss Matty was sadly jolted.

Mrs Forrester had made extra preparations, in acknowledgment of our exertion in coming to see her through

such dangers. The usual forms of genteel ignorance as to what her servants might send up were all gone

through; and harmony and Preference seemed likely to be the order of the evening, but for an interesting

conversation that began I don't know how, but which had relation, of course, to the robbers who infested the

Having braved the dangers of Darkness Lane, and thus having a little stock of reputation for courage to fall

back upon; and also, I daresay, desirous of proving ourselves superior to men (VIDELICET Mr Hoggins) in

the article of candour, we began to relate our individual fears, and the private precautions we each of us took.

I owned that my pet apprehension was eyes eyes looking at me, and watching me, glittering out from some

dull, flat, wooden surface; and that if I dared to go up to my lookingglass when I was panic stricken, I

should certainly turn it round, with its back towards me, for fear of seeing eyes behind me looking out of the

darkness. I saw Miss Matty nerving herself up for a confession; and at last out it came. She owned that, ever

since she had been a girl, she had dreaded being caught by her last leg, just as she was getting into bed, by

some one concealed under it. She said, when she was younger and more active, she used to take a flying leap

from a distance, and so bring both her legs up safely into bed at once; but that this had always annoyed

Deborah, who piqued herself upon getting into bed gracefully, and she had given it up in consequence. But

now the old terror would often come over her, especially since Miss Pole's house had been attacked (we had

got quite to believe in the fact of the attack having taken place), and yet it was very unpleasant to think of

looking under a bed, and seeing a man concealed, with a great, fierce face staring out at you; so she had

bethought herself of something perhaps I had noticed that she had told Martha to buy her a penny ball, such

as children play with and now she rolled this ball under the bed every night: if it came out on the other side,

well and good; if not she always took care to have her hand on the bellrope, and meant to call out John and

We all applauded this ingenious contrivance, and Miss Matty sank back into satisfied silence, with a look at

Mrs Forrester looked askance at Miss Pole, and tried to change the subject a little by telling us that she had

borrowed a boy from one of the neighbouring cottages and promised his parents a hundredweight of coals at

Christmas, and his supper every evening, for the loan of him at nights. She had instructed him in his possible

duties when he first came; and, finding him sensible, she had given him the Major's sword (the Major was her

late husband), and desired him to put it very carefully behind his pillow at night, turning the edge towards the

head of the pillow. He was a sharp lad, she was sure; for, spying out the Major's cocked hat, he had said, if he

might have that to wear, he was sure he could frighten two Englishmen, or four Frenchmen any day. But she

had impressed upon him anew that he was to lose no time in putting on hats or anything else; but, if he heard

any noise, he was to run at it with his drawn sword. On my suggesting that some accident might occur from

such slaughterous and indiscriminate directions, and that he might rush on Jenny getting up to wash, and have

spitted her before he had discovered that she was not a Frenchman, Mrs Forrester said she did not think that

that was likely, for he was a very sound sleeper, and generally had to be well shaken or cold pigged in a

morning before they could rouse him. She sometimes thought such dead sleep must be owing to the hearty

suppers the poor lad ate, for he was halfstarved at home, and she told Jenny to see that he got a good meal at

Still this was no confession of Mrs Forrester's peculiar timidity, and we urged her to tell us what she thought

would frighten her more than anything. She paused, and stirred the fire, and snuffed the candles, and then she

She looked at Miss Pole, as much as to say, she had declared it, and would stand by it. Such a look was a

challenge in itself. Miss Pole came down upon her with indigestion, spectral illusions, optical delusions, and

a great deal out of Dr Ferrier and Dr Hibbert besides. Miss Matty had rather a leaning to ghosts, as I have

mentioned before, and what little she did say was all on Mrs Forrester's side, who, emboldened by sympathy,

protested that ghosts were a part of her religion; that surely she, the widow of a major in the army, knew what

to be frightened at, and what not; in short, I never saw Mrs Forrester so warm either before or since, for she

was a gentle, meek, enduring old lady in most things. Not all the elderwine that ever was mulled could this

night wash out the remembrance of this difference between Miss Pole and her hostess. Indeed, when the

elderwine was brought in, it gave rise to a new burst of discussion; for Jenny, the little maiden who

staggered under the tray, had to give evidence of having seen a ghost with her own eyes, not so many nights

In spite of the uncomfortable feeling which this last consideration gave me, I could not help being amused at

Jenny's position, which was exceedingly like that of a witness being examined and cross examined by two

counsel who are not at all scrupulous about asking leading questions. The conclusion I arrived at was, that

Jenny had certainly seen something beyond what a fit of indigestion would have caused. A lady all in white,

and without her head, was what she deposed and adhered to, supported by a consciousness of the secret

sympathy of her mistress under the withering scorn with which Miss Pole regarded her. And not only she, but

many others, had seen this headless lady, who sat by the roadside wringing her hands as in deep grief. Mrs

Forrester looked at us from time to time with an air of conscious triumph; but then she had not to pass

through Darkness Lane before she could bury herself beneath her own familiar bedclothes.

We preserved a discreet silence as to the headless lady while we were putting on our things to go home, for

there was no knowing how near the ghostly head and ears might be, or what spiritual connection they might

be keeping up with the unhappy body in Darkness Lane; and, therefore, even Miss Pole felt that it was as well

not to speak lightly on such subjects, for fear of vexing or insulting that woebegone trunk. At least, so I

conjecture; for, instead of the busy clatter usual in the operation, we tied on our cloaks as sadly as mutes at a

funeral. Miss Matty drew the curtains round the windows of the chair to shut out disagreeable sights, and the

men (either because they were in spirits that their labours were so nearly ended, or because they were going

down hill), set off at such a round and merry pace, that it was all Miss Pole and I could do to keep up with

them. She had breath for nothing beyond an imploring "Don't leave me!" uttered as she clutched my arm so

tightly that I could not have quitted her, ghost or no ghost. What a relief it was when the men, weary of their

burden and their quick trot, stopped just where Headingley Causeway branches off from Darkness Lane!

"Could not you could not you take Miss Matty round by Headingley Causeway? the pavement in

"Oh! pray go on! What is the matter? What is the matter? I will give you sixpence more to go on very fast;

"And I'll give you a shilling," said Miss Pole, with tremulous dignity, "if you'll go by Headingley Causeway."

The two men grunted acquiescence and took up the chair, and went along the causeway, which certainly

answered Miss Pole's kind purpose of saving Miss Matty's bones; for it was covered with soft, thick mud, and

even a fall there would have been easy till the gettingup came, when there might have been some difficulty

THE next morning I met Lady Glenmire and Miss Pole setting out on a long walk to find some old woman

who was famous in the neighbourhood for her skill in knitting woollen stockings. Miss Pole said to me, with

a smile halfkindly and halfcontemptuous upon her countenance, "I have been just telling Lady Glenmire of

our poor friend Mrs Forrester, and her terror of ghosts. It comes from living so much alone, and listening to

the bugaboo stories of that Jenny of hers." She was so calm and so much above superstitious fears herself

that I was almost ashamed to say how glad I had been of her Headingley Causeway proposition the night

In the afternoon Miss Pole called on Miss Matty to tell her of the adventure the real adventure they had met

with on their morning's walk. They had been perplexed about the exact path which they were to take across

the fields in order to find the knitting old woman, and had stopped to inquire at a little wayside publichouse,

standing on the high road to London, about three miles from Cranford. The good woman had asked them to

sit down and rest themselves while she fetched her husband, who could direct them better than she could;

and, while they were sitting in the sanded parlour, a little girl came in. They thought that she belonged to the

landlady, and began some trifling conversation with her; but, on Mrs Roberts's return, she told them that the

little thing was the only child of a couple who were staying in the house. And then she began a long story, out

of which Lady Glenmire and Miss Pole could only gather one or two decided facts, which were that, about

six weeks ago, a light springcart had broken down just before their door, in which there were two men, one

woman, and this child. One of the men was seriously hurt no bones broken, only "shaken," the landlady

called it; but he had probably sustained some severe internal injury, for he had languished in their house ever

since, attended by his wife, the mother of this little girl. Miss Pole had asked what he was, what he looked

like. And Mrs Roberts had made answer that he was not like a gentleman, nor yet like a common person; if it

had not been that he and his wife were such decent, quiet people, she could almost have thought he was a

mountebank, or something of that kind, for they had a great box in the cart, full of she did not know what.

She had helped to unpack it, and take out their linen and clothes, when the other man his twinbrother, she

Miss Pole had begun to have her suspicions at this point, and expressed her idea that it was rather strange that

the box and cart and horse and all should have disappeared; but good Mrs Roberts seemed to have become

quite indignant at Miss Pole's implied suggestion; in fact, Miss Pole said she was as angry as if Miss Pole had

told her that she herself was a swindler. As the best way of convincing the ladies, she bethought her of

begging them to see the wife; and, as Miss Pole said, there was no doubting the honest, worn, bronzed face of

the woman, who at the first tender word from Lady Glenmire, burst into tears, which she was too weak to

check until some word from the landlady made her swallow down her sobs, in order that she might testify to

the Christian kindness shown by Mr and Mrs Roberts. Miss Pole came round with a swing to as vehement a

belief in the sorrowful tale as she had been sceptical before; and, as a proof of this, her energy in the poor

sufferer's behalf was nothing daunted when she found out that he, and no other, was our Signor Brunoni, to

whom all Cranford had been attributing all manner of evil this six weeks past! Yes! his wife said his proper

name was Samuel Brown "Sam," she called him but to the last we preferred calling him "the Signor"; it

The end of their conversation with the Signora Brunoni was that it was agreed that he should be placed under

medical advice, and for any expense incurred in procuring this Lady Glenmire promised to hold herself

responsible, and had accordingly gone to Mr Hoggins to beg him to ride over to the "Rising Sun" that very

afternoon, and examine into the signor's real state; and, as Miss Pole said, if it was desirable to remove him to

Cranford to be more immediately under Mr Hoggins's eye, she would undertake to see for lodgings and

arrange about the rent. Mrs Roberts had been as kind as could be all throughout, but it was evident that their

Before Miss Pole left us, Miss Matty and I were as full of the morning's adventure as she was. We talked

about it all the evening, turning it in every possible light, and we went to bed anxious for the morning, when

we should surely hear from someone what Mr Hoggins thought and recommended; for, as Miss Matty

observed, though Mr Hoggins did say "Jack's up," "a fig for his heels," and called Preference "Pref." she

believed he was a very worthy man and a very clever surgeon. Indeed, we were rather proud of our doctor at

Cranford, as a doctor. We often wished, when we heard of Queen Adelaide or the Duke of Wellington being

ill, that they would send for Mr Hoggins; but, on consideration, we were rather glad they did not, for, if we

were ailing, what should we do if Mr Hoggins had been appointed physicianinordinary to the Royal

Family? As a surgeon we were proud of him; but as a man or rather, I should say, as a gentleman we

could only shake our heads over his name and himself, and wished that he had read Lord Chesterfield's

Letters in the days when his manners were susceptible of improvement. Nevertheless, we all regarded his

dictum in the signor's case as infallible, and when he said that with care and attention he might rally, we had

But, although we had no more fear, everybody did as much as if there was great cause for anxiety as indeed

there was until Mr Hoggins took charge of him. Miss Pole looked out clean and comfortable, if homely,

lodgings; Miss Matty sent the sedanchair for him, and Martha and I aired it well before it left Cranford by

holding a warmingpan full of redhot coals in it, and then shutting it up close, smoke and all, until the time

when he should get into it at the "Rising Sun." Lady Glenmire undertook the medical department under Mr

Hoggins's directions, and rummaged up all Mrs Jamieson's medicine glasses, and spoons, and bedtables, in a

freeandeasy way, that made Miss Matty feel a little anxious as to what that lady and Mr Mulliner might

say, if they knew. Mrs Forrester made some of the breadjelly, for which she was so famous, to have ready as

a refreshment in the lodgings when he should arrive. A present of this breadjelly was the highest mark of

favour dear Mrs Forrester could confer. Miss Pole had once asked her for the receipt, but she had met with a

very decided rebuff; that lady told her that she could not part with it to any one during her life, and that after

her death it was bequeathed, as her executors would find, to Miss Matty. What Miss Matty, or, as Mrs

Forrester called her (remembering the clause in her will and the dignity of the occasion), Miss Matilda

Jenkyns might choose to do with the receipt when it came into her possession whether to make it public,

or to hand it down as an heirloom she did not know, nor would she dictate. And a mould of this admirable,

digestible, unique breadjelly was sent by Mrs Forrester to our poor sick conjuror. Who says that the

aristocracy are proud? Here was a lady by birth a Tyrrell, and descended from the great Sir Walter that shot

King Rufus, and in whose veins ran the blood of him who murdered the little princes in the Tower, going

every day to see what dainty dishes she could prepare for Samuel Brown, a mountebank! But, indeed, it was

wonderful to see what kind feelings were called out by this poor man's coming amongst us. And also

wonderful to see how the great Cranford panic, which had been occasioned by his first coming in his Turkish

dress, melted away into thin air on his second coming pale and feeble, and with his heavy, filmy eyes, that

only brightened a very little when they fell upon the countenance of his faithful wife, or their pale and

Somehow we all forgot to be afraid. I daresay it was that finding out that he, who had first excited our love of

the marvellous by his unprecedented arts, had not sufficient everyday gifts to manage a shying horse, made

us feel as if we were ourselves again. Miss Pole came with her little basket at all hours of the evening, as if

her lonely house and the unfrequented road to it had never been infested by that "murderous gang"; Mrs

Forrester said she thought that neither Jenny nor she need mind the headless lady who wept and wailed in

Darkness Lane, for surely the power was never given to such beings to harm those who went about to try to

do what little good was in their power, to which Jenny tremblingly assented; but the mistress's theory had

little effect on the maid's practice until she had sewn two pieces of red flannel in the shape of a cross on her

I found Miss Matty covering her penny ball the ball that she used to roll under her bed with gaycoloured

"My dear," said she, "my heart is sad for that little careworn child. Although her father is a conjuror, she

looks as if she had never had a good game of play in her life. I used to make very pretty balls in this way

when I was a girl, and I thought I would try if I could not make this one smart and take it to Phoebe this

afternoon. I think 'the gang' must have left the neighbourhood, for one does not hear any more of their

We were all of us far too full of the signor's precarious state to talk either about robbers or ghosts. Indeed,

Lady Glenmire said she never had heard of any actual robberies, except that two little boys had stolen some

apples from Farmer Benson's orchard, and that some eggs had been missed on a marketday off Widow

Hayward's stall. But that was expecting too much of us; we could not acknowledge that we had only had this

small foundation for all our panic. Miss Pole drew herself up at this remark of Lady Glenmire's, and said

"that she wished she could agree with her as to the very small reason we had had for alarm, but with the

recollection of a man disguised as a woman who had endeavoured to force himself into her house while his

confederates waited outside; with the knowledge gained from Lady Glenmire herself, of the footprints seen

on Mrs Jamieson's flower borders; with the fact before her of the audacious robbery committed on Mr

Hoggins at his own door" But here Lady Glenmire broke in with a very strong expression of doubt as to

whether this last story was not an entire fabrication founded upon the theft of a cat; she grew so red while she

was saying all this that I was not surprised at Miss Pole's manner of bridling up, and I am certain, if Lady

Glenmire had not been "her ladyship," we should have had a more emphatic contradiction than the "Well, to

be sure!" and similar fragmentary ejaculations, which were all that she ventured upon in my lady's presence.

But when she was gone Miss Pole began a long congratulation to Miss Matty that so far they had escaped

marriage, which she noticed always made people credulous to the last degree; indeed, she thought it argued

great natural credulity in a woman if she could not keep herself from being married; and in what Lady

Glenmire had said about Mr Hoggins's robbery we had a specimen of what people came to if they gave way

to such a weakness; evidently Lady Glenmire would swallow anything if she could believe the poor

vampedup story about a neck of mutton and a pussy with which he had tried to impose on Miss Pole, only

We were thankful, as Miss Pole desired us to be, that we had never been married; but I think, of the two, we

were even more thankful that the robbers had left Cranford; at least I judge so from a speech of Miss Matty's

that evening, as we sat over the fire, in which she evidently looked upon a husband as a great protector

against thieves, burglars, and ghosts; and said that she did not think that she should dare to be always warning

young people against matrimony, as Miss Pole did continually; to be sure, marriage was a risk, as she saw,

now she had had some experience; but she remembered the time when she had looked forward to being

"Not to any particular person, my dear," said she, hastily checking herself up, as if she were afraid of having

admitted too much; "only the old story, you know, of ladies always saying, 'WHEN I marry,' and gentlemen,

'IF I marry.'" It was a joke spoken in rather a sad tone, and I doubt if either of us smiled; but I could not see

"But, after all, I have not told you the truth. It is so long ago, and no one ever knew how much I thought of it

at the time, unless, indeed, my dear mother guessed; but I may say that there was a time when I did not think

I should have been only Miss Matty Jenkyns all my life; for even if I did meet with any one who wished to

marry me now (and, as Miss Pole says, one is never too safe), I could not take him I hope he would not take

it too much to heart, but I could NOT take him or any one but the person I once thought I should be married

to; and he is dead and gone, and he never knew how it all came about that I said 'No,' when I had thought

many and many a time Well, it's no matter what I thought. God ordains it all, and I am very happy, my

dear. No one has such kind friends as I," continued she, taking my hand and holding it in hers.

If I had never known of Mr Holbrook, I could have said something in this pause, but as I had, I could not

think of anything that would come in naturally, and so we both kept silence for a little time.

"My father once made us," she began, "keep a diary, in two columns; on one side we were to put down in the

morning what we thought would be the course and events of the coming day, and at night we were to put

down on the other side what really had happened. It would be to some people rather a sad way of telling their

lives," (a tear dropped upon my hand at these words) "I don't mean that mine has been sad, only so very

different to what I expected. I remember, one winter's evening, sitting over our bedroom fire with Deborah

I remember it as if it were yesterday and we were planning our future lives, both of us were planning,

though only she talked about it. She said she should like to marry an archdeacon, and write his charges; and

you know, my dear, she never was married, and, for aught I know, she never spoke to an unmarried

archdeacon in her life. I never was ambitious, nor could I have written charges, but I thought I could manage

a house (my mother used to call me her right hand), and I was always so fond of little children the shyest

babies would stretch out their little arms to come to me; when I was a girl, I was half my leisure time nursing

in the neighbouring cottages; but I don't know how it was, when I grew sad and grave which I did a year or

two after this time the little things drew back from me, and I am afraid I lost the knack, though I am just as

fond of children as ever, and have a strange yearning at my heart whenever I see a mother with her baby in

her arms. Nay, my dear" (and by a sudden blaze which sprang up from a fall of the unstirred coals, I saw that

her eyes were full of tears gazing intently on some vision of what might have been), "do you know I dream

sometimes that I have a little child always the same a little girl of about two years old; she never grows

older, though I have dreamt about her for many years. I don't think I ever dream of any words or sound she

makes; she is very noiseless and still, but she comes to me when she is very sorry or very glad, and I have

wakened with the clasp of her dear little arms round my neck. Only last night perhaps because I had gone to

sleep thinking of this ball for Phoebe my little darling came in my dream, and put up her mouth to be

kissed, just as I have seen real babies do to real mothers before going to bed. But all this is nonsense, dear!

only don't be frightened by Miss Pole from being married. I can fancy it may be a very happy state, and a

little credulity helps one on through life very smoothly better than always doubting and doubting and

If I had been inclined to be daunted from matrimony, it would not have been Miss Pole to do it; it would have

been the lot of poor Signor Brunoni and his wife. And yet again, it was an encouragement to see how,

through all their cares and sorrows, they thought of each other and not of themselves; and how keen were

their joys, if they only passed through each other, or through the little Phoebe.

The signora told me, one day, a good deal about their lives up to this period. It began by my asking her

whether Miss Pole's story of the twinbrothers were true; it sounded so wonderful a likeness, that I should

have had my doubts, if Miss Pole had not been unmarried. But the signora, or (as we found out she preferred

to be called) Mrs Brown, said it was quite true; that her brotherin law was by many taken for her husband,

which was of great assistance to them in their profession; "though," she continued, "how people can mistake

Thomas for the real Signor Brunoni, I can't conceive; but he says they do; so I suppose I must believe him.

Not but what he is a very good man; I am sure I don't know how we should have paid our bill at the 'Rising

Sun' but for the money he sends; but people must know very little about art if they can take him for my

husband. Why, Miss, in the ball trick, where my husband spreads his fingers wide, and throws out his little

finger with quite an air and a grace, Thomas just clumps up his hand like a fist, and might have ever so many

balls hidden in it. Besides, he has never been in India, and knows nothing of the proper sit of a turban."

"Oh, yes! many a year, ma'am. Sam was a sergeant in the 31st; and when the regiment was ordered to India, I

drew a lot to go, and I was more thankful than I can tell; for it seemed as if it would only be a slow death to

me to part from my husband. But, indeed, ma'am, if I had known all, I don't know whether I would not rather

have died there and then than gone through what I have done since. To be sure, I've been able to comfort

Sam, and to be with him; but, ma'am, I've lost six children," said she, looking up at me with those strange

eyes that I've never noticed but in mothers of dead children with a kind of wild look in them, as if seeking

for what they never more might find. "Yes! Six children died off, like little buds nipped untimely, in that

cruel India. I thought, as each died, I never could I never would love a child again; and when the next

came, it had not only its own love, but the deeper love that came from the thoughts of its little dead brothers

and sisters. And when Phoebe was coming, I said to my husband, 'Sam, when the child is born, and I am

strong, I shall leave you; it will cut my heart cruel; but if this baby dies too, I shall go mad; the madness is in

me now; but if you let me go down to Calcutta, carrying my baby step by step, it will, maybe, work itself off;

and I will save, and I will hoard, and I will beg and I will die, to get a passage home to England, where our

baby may live?' God bless him! he said I might go; and he saved up his pay, and I saved every pice I could

get for washing or any way; and when Phoebe came, and I grew strong again, I set off. It was very lonely;

through the thick forests, dark again with their heavy trees along by the river's side (but I had been brought

up near the Avon in Warwickshire, so that flowing noise sounded like home) from station to station, from

Indian village to village, I went along, carrying my child. I had seen one of the officer's ladies with a little

picture, ma'am done by a Catholic foreigner, ma'am of the Virgin and the little Saviour, ma'am. She had

him on her arm, and her form was softly curled round him, and their cheeks touched. Well, when I went to

bid goodbye to this lady, for whom I had washed, she cried sadly; for she, too, had lost her children, but she

had not another to save, like me; and I was bold enough to ask her would she give me that print. And she

cried the more, and said her children were with that little blessed Jesus; and gave it me, and told me that she

had heard it had been painted on the bottom of a cask, which made it have that round shape. And when my

body was very weary, and my heart was sick (for there were times when I misdoubted if I could ever reach

my home, and there were times when I thought of my husband, and one time when I thought my baby was

dying), I took out that picture and looked at it, till I could have thought the mother spoke to me, and

comforted me. And the natives were very kind. We could not understand one another; but they saw my baby

on my breast, and they came out to me, and brought me rice and milk, and sometimes flowers I have got

some of the flowers dried. Then, the next morning, I was so tired; and they wanted me to stay with them I

could tell that and tried to frighten me from going into the deep woods, which, indeed, looked very strange

and dark; but it seemed to me as if Death was following me to take my baby away from me; and as if I must

go on, and on and I thought how God had cared for mothers ever since the world was made, and would care

for me; so I bade them goodbye, and set off afresh. And once when my baby was ill, and both she and I

needed rest, He led me to a place where I found a kind Englishman lived, right in the midst of the natives."

"Yes, safely! Oh! when I knew I had only two days' journey more before me, I could not help it, ma'am it

might be idolatry, I cannot tell but I was near one of the native temples, and I went into it with my baby to

thank God for His great mercy; for it seemed to me that where others had prayed before to their God, in their

joy or in their agony, was of itself a sacred place. And I got as servant to an invalid lady, who grew quite fond

of my baby aboardship; and, in two years' time, Sam earned his discharge, and came home to me, and to our

child. Then he had to fix on a trade; but he knew of none; and once, once upon a time, he had learnt some

tricks from an Indian juggler; so he set up conjuring, and it answered so well that he took Thomas to help him

as his man, you know, not as another conjuror, though Thomas has set it up now on his own hook. But it

has been a great help to us that likeness between the twins, and made a good many tricks go off well that they

made up together. And Thomas is a good brother, only he has not the fine carriage of my husband, so that I

"Poor little Phoebe!" said I, my thoughts going back to the baby she carried all those hundred miles.

"Ah! you may say so! I never thought I should have reared her, though, when she fell ill at Chunderabaddad;

but that good, kind Aga Jenkyns took us in, which I believe was the very saving of her."

"Yes, Jenkyns. I shall think all people of that name are kind; for here is that nice old lady who comes every

But an idea had flashed through my head; could the Aga Jenkyns be the lost Peter? True he was reported by

many to be dead. But, equally true, some had said that he had arrived at the dignity of Great Lama of Thibet.

WAS the "poor Peter" of Cranford the Aga Jenkyns of Chunderabaddad, or was he not? As somebody says,

In my own home, whenever people had nothing else to do, they blamed me for want of discretion.

Indiscretion was my bugbear fault. Everybody has a bugbear fault, a sort of standing characteristic a

PIECE DE RESISTANCE for their friends to cut at; and in general they cut and come again. I was tired of

being called indiscreet and incautious; and I determined for once to prove myself a model of prudence and

wisdom. I would not even hint my suspicions respecting the Aga. I would collect evidence and carry it home

In my search after facts, I was often reminded of a description my father had once given of a ladies'

committee that he had had to preside over. He said he could not help thinking of a passage in Dickens, which

spoke of a chorus in which every man took the tune he knew best, and sang it to his own satisfaction. So, at

this charitable committee, every lady took the subject uppermost in her mind, and talked about it to her own

great contentment, but not much to the advancement of the subject they had met to discuss. But even that

committee could have been nothing to the Cranford ladies when I attempted to gain some clear and definite

information as to poor Peter's height, appearance, and when and where he was seen and heard of last. For

instance, I remember asking Miss Pole (and I thought the question was very opportune, for I put it when I met

her at a call at Mrs Forrester's, and both the ladies had known Peter, and I imagined that they might refresh

each other's memories) I asked Miss Pole what was the very last thing they had ever heard about him; and

then she named the absurd report to which I have alluded, about his having been elected Great Lama of

Thibet; and this was a signal for each lady to go off on her separate idea. Mrs Forrester's start was made on

the veiled prophet in Lalla Rookh whether I thought he was meant for the Great Lama, though Peter was

not so ugly, indeed rather handsome, if he had not been freckled. I was thankful to see her double upon Peter;

but, in a moment, the delusive lady was off upon Rowland's Kalydor, and the merits of cosmetics and hair

oils in general, and holding forth so fluently that I turned to listen to Miss Pole, who (through the llamas, the

beasts of burden) had got to Peruvian bonds, and the share market, and her poor opinion of jointstock banks

in general, and of that one in particular in which Miss Matty's money was invested. In vain I put in "When

was it in what year was it that you heard that Mr Peter was the Great Lama?" They only joined issue to

dispute whether llamas were carnivorous animals or not; in which dispute they were not quite on fair

grounds, as Mrs Forrester (after they had grown warm and cool again) acknowledged that she always

confused carnivorous and graminivorous together, just as she did horizontal and perpendicular; but then she

apologised for it very prettily, by saying that in her day the only use people made of foursyllabled words

The only fact I gained from this conversation was that certainly Peter had last been heard of in India, "or that

neighbourhood"; and that this scanty intelligence of his whereabouts had reached Cranford in the year when

Miss Pole had brought her Indian muslin gown, long since worn out (we washed it and mended it, and traced

its decline and fall into a windowblind before we could go on); and in a year when Wombwell came to

Cranford, because Miss Matty had wanted to see an elephant in order that she might the better imagine Peter

riding on one; and had seen a boaconstrictor too, which was more than she wished to imagine in her

fancypictures of Peter's locality; and in a year when Miss Jenkyns had learnt some piece of poetry off by

heart, and used to say, at all the Cranford parties, how Peter was "surveying mankind from China to Peru,"

which everybody had thought very grand, and rather appropriate, because India was between China and Peru,

I suppose all these inquiries of mine, and the consequent curiosity excited in the minds of my friends, made

us blind and deaf to what was going on around us. It seemed to me as if the sun rose and shone, and as if the

rain rained on Cranford, just as usual, and I did not notice any sign of the times that could be considered as a

prognostic of any uncommon event; and, to the best of my belief, not only Miss Matty and Mrs Forrester, but

even Miss Pole herself, whom we looked upon as a kind of prophetess, from the knack she had of foreseeing

things before they came to pass although she did not like to disturb her friends by telling them her

foreknowledge even Miss Pole herself was breathless with astonishment when she came to tell us of the

astounding piece of news. But I must recover myself; the contemplation of it, even at this distance of time,

has taken away my breath and my grammar, and unless I subdue my emotion, my spelling will go too.

We were sitting Miss Matty and I much as usual, she in the blue chintz easychair, with her back to the

light, and her knitting in her hand, I reading aloud the ST JAMES'S CHRONICLE. A few minutes more, and

we should have gone to make the little alterations in dress usual before callingtime (twelve o'clock) in

Cranford. I remember the scene and the date well. We had been talking of the signor's rapid recovery since

the warmer weather had set in, and praising Mr Hoggins's skill, and lamenting his want of refinement and

manner (it seems a curious coincidence that this should have been our subject, but so it was), when a knock

was heard a caller's knock three distinct taps and we were flying (that is to say, Miss Matty could not

walk very fast, having had a touch of rheumatism) to our rooms, to change cap and collars, when Miss Pole

arrested us by calling out, as she came up the stairs, "Don't go I can't wait it is not twelve, I know but

never mind your dress I must speak to you." We did our best to look as if it was not we who had made the

hurried movement, the sound of which she had heard; for, of course, we did not like to have it supposed that

we had any old clothes that it was convenient to wear out in the "sanctuary of home," as Miss Jenkyns once

prettily called the back parlour, where she was tying up preserves. So we threw our gentility with double

force into our manners, and very genteel we were for two minutes while Miss Pole recovered breath, and

excited our curiosity strongly by lifting up her hands in amazement, and bringing them down in silence, as if

what she had to say was too big for words, and could only be expressed by pantomime.

"What do you think, Miss Matty? What DO you think? Lady Glenmire is to marry is to be married, I mean

"Marry!" said Miss Pole, with the decision that belonged to her character. "I said marry! as you do; and I also

said, 'What a fool my lady is going to make of herself!' I could have said 'Madness!' but I controlled myself,

for it was in a public shop that I heard of it. Where feminine delicacy is gone to, I don't know! You and I,

Miss Matty, would have been ashamed to have known that our marriage was spoken of in a grocer's shop, in

"But," said Miss Matty, sighing as one recovering from a blow, "perhaps it is not true. Perhaps we are doing

"No," said Miss Pole. "I have taken care to ascertain that. I went straight to Mrs FitzAdam, to borrow a

cookerybook which I knew she had; and I introduced my congratulations A PROPOS of the difficulty

gentlemen must have in housekeeping; and Mrs FitzAdam bridled up, and said that she believed it was

true, though how and where I could have heard it she did not know. She said her brother and Lady Glenmire

had come to an understanding at last. 'Understanding!' such a coarse word! But my lady will have to come

down to many a want of refinement. I have reason to believe Mr Hoggins sups on breadandcheese and

"Marry!" said Miss Matty once again. "Well! I never thought of it. Two people that we know going to be

"So near that my heart stopped beating when I heard of it, while you might have counted twelve," said Miss

"One does not know whose turn may come next. Here, in Cranford, poor Lady Glenmire might have thought

"Bah!" said Miss Pole, with a toss of her head. "Don't you remember poor dear Captain Brown's song 'Tibbie

"Well! there was a kind of attraction about Lady Glenmire that I, for one, should be ashamed to have."

I put in my wonder. "But how can she have fancied Mr Hoggins? I am not surprised that Mr Hoggins has

"Oh! I don't know. Mr Hoggins is rich, and very pleasant looking," said Miss Matty, "and very

"She has married for an establishment, that's it. I suppose she takes the surgery with it," said Miss Pole, with

a little dry laugh at her own joke. But, like many people who think they have made a severe and sarcastic

speech, which yet is clever of its kind, she began to relax in her grimness from the moment when she made

this allusion to the surgery; and we turned to speculate on the way in which Mrs Jamieson would receive the

news. The person whom she had left in charge of her house to keep off followers from her maids to set up a

follower of her own! And that follower a man whom Mrs Jamieson had tabooed as vulgar, and inadmissible

to Cranford society, not merely on account of his name, but because of his voice, his complexion, his boots,

smelling of the stable, and himself, smelling of drugs. Had he ever been to see Lady Glenmire at Mrs

Jamieson's? Chloride of lime would not purify the house in its owner's estimation if he had. Or had their

interviews been confined to the occasional meetings in the chamber of the poor sick conjuror, to whom, with

all our sense of the MESALLIANCE, we could not help allowing that they had both been exceedingly kind?

And now it turned out that a servant of Mrs Jamieson's had been ill, and Mr Hoggins had been attending her

for some weeks. So the wolf had got into the fold, and now he was carrying off the shepherdess. What would

Mrs Jamieson say? We looked into the darkness of futurity as a child gazes after a rocket up in the cloudy

sky, full of wondering expectation of the rattle, the discharge, and the brilliant shower of sparks and light.

Then we brought ourselves down to earth and the present time by questioning each other (being all equally

ignorant, and all equally without the slightest data to build any conclusions upon) as to when IT would take

place? Where? How much a year Mr Hoggins had? Whether she would drop her title? And how Martha and

the other correct servants in Cranford would ever be brought to announce a married couple as Lady Glenmire

and Mr Hoggins? But would they be visited? Would Mrs Jamieson let us? Or must we choose between the

Honourable Mrs Jamieson and the degraded Lady Glenmire? We all liked Lady Glenmire the best. She was

bright, and kind, and sociable, and agreeable; and Mrs Jamieson was dull, and inert, and pompous, and

tiresome. But we had acknowledged the sway of the latter so long, that it seemed like a kind of disloyalty

Mrs Forrester surprised us in our darned caps and patched collars; and we forgot all about them in our

eagerness to see how she would bear the information, which we honourably left to Miss Pole, to impart,

although, if we had been inclined to take unfair advantage, we might have rushed in ourselves, for she had a

most outofplace fit of coughing for five minutes after Mrs Forrester entered the room. I shall never forget

the imploring expression of her eyes, as she looked at us over her pockethandkerchief. They said, as plain as

words could speak, "Don't let Nature deprive me of the treasure which is mine, although for a time I can

Mrs Forrester's surprise was equal to ours; and her sense of injury rather greater, because she had to feel for

her Order, and saw more fully than we could do how such conduct brought stains on the aristocracy.

When she and Miss Pole left us we endeavoured to subside into calmness; but Miss Matty was really upset by

the intelligence she had heard. She reckoned it up, and it was more than fifteen years since she had heard of

any of her acquaintance going to be married, with the one exception of Miss Jessie Brown; and, as she said, it

gave her quite a shock, and made her feel as if she could not think what would happen next.

I don't know whether it is a fancy of mine, or a real fact, but I have noticed that, just after the announcement

of an engagement in any set, the unmarried ladies in that set flutter out in an unusual gaiety and newness of

dress, as much as to say, in a tacit and unconscious manner, "We also are spinsters." Miss Matty and Miss

Pole talked and thought more about bonnets, gowns, caps, and shawls, during the fortnight that succeeded

this call, than I had known them do for years before. But it might be the spring weather, for it was a warm

and pleasant March; and merinoes and beavers, and woollen materials of all sorts were but ungracious

receptacles of the bright sun's glancing rays. It had not been Lady Glenmire's dress that had won Mr

Hoggins's heart, for she went about on her errands of kindness more shabby than ever. Although in the

hurried glimpses I caught of her at church or elsewhere she appeared rather to shun meeting any of her

friends, her face seemed to have almost something of the flush of youth in it; her lips looked redder and more

trembling full than in their old compressed state, and her eyes dwelt on all things with a lingering light, as if

she was learning to love Cranford and its belongings. Mr Hoggins looked broad and radiant, and creaked up

the middle aisle at church in a brandnew pair of topboots an audible, as well as visible, sign of his

purposed change of state; for the tradition went, that the boots he had worn till now were the identical pair in

which he first set out on his rounds in Cranford twentyfive years ago; only they had been newpieced, high

and low, top and bottom, heel and sole, black leather and brown leather, more times than any one could tell.

None of the ladies in Cranford chose to sanction the marriage by congratulating either of the parties. We

wished to ignore the whole affair until our liege lady, Mrs Jamieson, returned. Till she came back to give us

our cue, we felt that it would be better to consider the engagement in the same light as the Queen of Spain's

legs facts which certainly existed, but the less said about the better. This restraint upon our tongues for

you see if we did not speak about it to any of the parties concerned, how could we get answers to the

questions that we longed to ask? was beginning to be irksome, and our idea of the dignity of silence was

paling before our curiosity, when another direction was given to our thoughts, by an announcement on the

part of the principal shopkeeper of Cranford, who ranged the trades from grocer and cheesemonger to

manmilliner, as occasion required, that the spring fashions were arrived, and would be exhibited on the

following Tuesday at his rooms in High Street. Now Miss Matty had been only waiting for this before buying

herself a new silk gown. I had offered, it is true, to send to Drumble for patterns, but she had rejected my

proposal, gently implying that she had not forgotten her disappointment about the seagreen turban. I was

thankful that I was on the spot now, to counteract the dazzling fascination of any yellow or scarlet silk.

I must say a word or two here about myself. I have spoken of my father's old friendship for the Jenkyns

family; indeed, I am not sure if there was not some distant relationship. He had willingly allowed me to

remain all the winter at Cranford, in consideration of a letter which Miss Matty had written to him about the

time of the panic, in which I suspect she had exaggerated my powers and my bravery as a defender of the

house. But now that the days were longer and more cheerful, he was beginning to urge the necessity of my

return; and I only delayed in a sort of odd forlorn hope that if I could obtain any clear information, I might

make the account given by the signora of the Aga Jenkyns tally with that of "poor Peter," his appearance and

disappearance, which I had winnowed out of the conversation of Miss Pole and Mrs Forrester.

THE very Tuesday morning on which Mr Johnson was going to show the fashions, the postwoman brought

two letters to the house. I say the postwoman, but I should say the postman's wife. He was a lame

shoemaker, a very clean, honest man, much respected in the town; but he never brought the letters round

except on unusual occasions, such as Christmas Day or Good Friday; and on those days the letters, which

should have been delivered at eight in the morning, did not make their appearance until two or three in the

afternoon, for every one liked poor Thomas, and gave him a welcome on these festive occasions. He used to

say, "He was welly stawed wi' eating, for there were three or four houses where nowt would serve 'em but he

must share in their breakfast;" and by the time he had done his last breakfast, he came to some other friend

who was beginning dinner; but come what might in the way of temptation, Tom was always sober, civil, and

smiling; and, as Miss Jenkyns used to say, it was a lesson in patience, that she doubted not would call out that

precious quality in some minds, where, but for Thomas, it might have lain dormant and undiscovered.

Patience was certainly very dormant in Miss Jenkyns's mind. She was always expecting letters, and always

drumming on the table till the postwoman had called or gone past. On Christmas Day and Good Friday she

drummed from breakfast till church, from churchtime till two o'clock unless when the fire wanted stirring,

when she invariably knocked down the fireirons, and scolded Miss Matty for it. But equally certain was the

hearty welcome and the good dinner for Thomas; Miss Jenkyns standing over him like a bold dragoon,

questioning him as to his children what they were doing what school they went to; upbraiding him if

another was likely to make its appearance, but sending even the little babies the shilling and the mincepie

which was her gift to all the children, with halfacrown in addition for both father and mother. The post was

not half of so much consequence to dear Miss Matty; but not for the world would she have diminished

Thomas's welcome and his dole, though I could see that she felt rather shy over the ceremony, which had

been regarded by Miss Jenkyns as a glorious opportunity for giving advice and benefiting her

fellowcreatures. Miss Matty would steal the money all in a lump into his hand, as if she were ashamed of

herself. Miss Jenkyns gave him each individual coin separate, with a "There! that's for yourself; that's for

Jenny," etc. Miss Matty would even beckon Martha out of the kitchen while he ate his food: and once, to my

knowledge, winked at its rapid disappearance into a blue cotton pockethandkerchief. Miss Jenkyns almost

scolded him if he did not leave a clean plate, however heaped it might have been, and gave an injunction with

I have wandered a long way from the two letters that awaited us on the breakfasttable that Tuesday

morning. Mine was from my father. Miss Matty's was printed. My father's was just a man's letter; I mean it

was very dull, and gave no information beyond that he was well, that they had had a good deal of rain, that

trade was very stagnant, and there were many disagreeable rumours afloat. He then asked me if I knew

whether Miss Matty still retained her shares in the Town and County Bank, as there were very unpleasant

reports about it; though nothing more than he had always foreseen, and had prophesied to Miss Jenkyns years

ago, when she would invest their little property in it the only unwise step that clever woman had ever taken,

to his knowledge (the only time she ever acted against his advice, I knew). However, if anything had gone

wrong, of course I was not to think of leaving Miss Matty while I could be of any use, etc.

"Who is your letter from, my dear? Mine is a very civil invitation, signed 'Edwin Wilson,' asking me to attend

an important meeting of the shareholders of the Town and County Bank, to be held in Drumble, on Thursday

I did not like to hear of this "important meeting," for, though I did not know much about business, I feared it

confirmed what my father said: however, I thought, ill news always came fast enough, so I resolved to say

nothing about my alarm, and merely told her that my father was well, and sent his kind regards to her. She

"I remember their sending one to Deborah just like this; but that I did not wonder at, for everybody knew she

was so clearheaded. I am afraid I could not help them much; indeed, if they came to accounts, I should be

quite in the way, for I never could do sums in my head. Deborah, I know, rather wished to go, and went so far

as to order a new bonnet for the occasion: but when the time came she had a bad cold; so they sent her a very

polite account of what they had done. Chosen a director, I think it was. Do you think they want me to help

"Oh, no! I remember. He objected very much to Deborah's buying any, I believe. But she was quite the

woman of business, and always judged for herself; and here, you see, they have paid eight per cent. all these

It was a very uncomfortable subject to me, with my halfknowledge; so I thought I would change the

conversation, and I asked at what time she thought we had better go and see the fashions. "Well, my dear,"

she said, "the thing is this: it is not etiquette to go till after twelve; but then, you see, all Cranford will be

there, and one does not like to be too curious about dress and trimmings and caps with all the world looking

on. It is never genteel to be overcurious on these occasions. Deborah had the knack of always looking as if

the latest fashion was nothing new to her; a manner she had caught from Lady Arley, who did see all the new

modes in London, you know. So I thought we would just slip down for I do want this morning, soon after

breakfast halfapound of tea and then we could go up and examine the things at our leisure, and see

exactly how my new silk gown must be made; and then, after twelve, we could go with our minds

We began to talk of Miss Matty's new silk gown. I discovered that it would be really the first time in her life

that she had had to choose anything of consequence for herself: for Miss Jenkyns had always been the more

decided character, whatever her taste might have been; and it is astonishing how such people carry the world

before them by the mere force of will. Miss Matty anticipated the sight of the glossy folds with as much

delight as if the five sovereigns, set apart for the purchase, could buy all the silks in the shop; and

(remembering my own loss of two hours in a toyshop before I could tell on what wonder to spend a silver

threepence) I was very glad that we were going early, that dear Miss Matty might have leisure for the delights

If a happy seagreen could be met with, the gown was to be sea green: if not, she inclined to maize, and I to

silver gray; and we discussed the requisite number of breadths until we arrived at the shopdoor. We were to

buy the tea, select the silk, and then clamber up the iron corkscrew stairs that led into what was once a loft,

The young men at Mr Johnson's had on their best looks; and their best cravats, and pivoted themselves over

the counter with surprising activity. They wanted to show us upstairs at once; but on the principle of business

first and pleasure afterwards, we stayed to purchase the tea. Here Miss Matty's absence of mind betrayed

itself. If she was made aware that she had been drinking green tea at any time, she always thought it her duty

to lie awake half through the night afterward (I have known her take it in ignorance many a time without such

effects), and consequently green tea was prohibited the house; yet today she herself asked for the obnoxious

article, under the impression that she was talking about the silk. However, the mistake was soon rectified; and

then the silks were unrolled in good truth. By this time the shop was pretty well filled, for it was Cranford

marketday, and many of the farmers and country people from the neighbourhood round came in, sleeking

down their hair, and glancing shyly about, from under their eyelids, as anxious to take back some notion of

the unusual gaiety to the mistress or the lasses at home, and yet feeling that they were out of place among the

smart shopmen and gay shawls and summer prints. One honestlooking man, however, made his way up to

the counter at which we stood, and boldly asked to look at a shawl or two. The other country folk confined

themselves to the grocery side; but our neighbour was evidently too full of some kind intention towards

mistress, wife or daughter, to be shy; and it soon became a question with me, whether he or Miss Matty

would keep their shopmen the longest time. He thought each shawl more beautiful than the last; and, as for

Miss Matty, she smiled and sighed over each fresh bale that was brought out; one colour set off another, and

"I am afraid," said she, hesitating, "Whichever I choose I shall wish I had taken another. Look at this lovely

crimson! it would be so warm in winter. But spring is coming on, you know. I wish I could have a gown for

every season," said she, dropping her voice as we all did in Cranford whenever we talked of anything we

wished for but could not afford. "However," she continued in a louder and more cheerful tone, "it would give

me a great deal of trouble to take care of them if I had them; so, I think, I'll only take one. But which must it

And now she hovered over a lilac with yellow spots, while I pulled out a quiet sagegreen that had faded into

insignificance under the more brilliant colours, but which was nevertheless a good silk in its humble way.

Our attention was called off to our neighbour. He had chosen a shawl of about thirty shillings' value; and his

face looked broadly happy, under the anticipation, no doubt, of the pleasant surprise he would give to some

Molly or Jenny at home; he had tugged a leathern purse out of his breechespocket, and had offered a

fivepound note in payment for the shawl, and for some parcels which had been brought round to him from

the grocery counter; and it was just at this point that he attracted our notice. The shopman was examining the

"Town and County Bank! I am not sure, sir, but I believe we have received a warning against notes issued by

this bank only this morning. I will just step and ask Mr Johnson, sir; but I'm afraid I must trouble you for

I never saw a man's countenance fall so suddenly into dismay and bewilderment. It was almost piteous to see

"Dang it!" said he, striking his fist down on the table, as if to try which was the harder, "the chap talks as if

Miss Matty had forgotten her silk gown in her interest for the man. I don't think she had caught the name of

the bank, and in my nervous cowardice I was anxious that she should not; and so I began admiring the

yellowspotted lilac gown that I had been utterly condemning only a minute before. But it was of no use.

"Let me see it," said she quietly to the shopman, gently taking it out of his hand, as he brought it back to

Mr Johnson was very sorry, but, from information he had received, the notes issued by that bank were little

"I don't understand it," said Miss Matty to me in a low voice. "That is our bank, is it not? the Town and

"Yes," said I. "This lilac silk will just match the ribbons in your new cap, I believe," I continued, holding up

the folds so as to catch the light, and wishing that the man would make haste and be gone, and yet having a

new wonder, that had only just sprung up, how far it was wise or right in me to allow Miss Matty to make

this expensive purchase, if the affairs of the bank were really so bad as the refusal of the note implied.

But Miss Matty put on the soft dignified manner, peculiar to her, rarely used, and yet which became her so

"Never mind the silks for a few minutes, dear. I don't understand you, sir," turning now to the shopman, who

"Oh, no, ma'am. It is a true note of its kind; but you see, ma'am, it is a jointstock bank, and there are reports

out that it is likely to break. Mr Johnson is only doing his duty, ma'am, as I am sure Mr Dobson knows."

But Mr Dobson could not respond to the appealing bow by any answering smile. He was turning the note

absently over in his fingers, looking gloomily enough at the parcel containing the latelychosen shawl.

"It's hard upon a poor man," said he, "as earns every farthing with the sweat of his brow. However, there's no

help for it. You must take back your shawl, my man; Lizzle must go on with her cloak for a while. And yon

figs for the little ones I promised them to 'em I'll take them; but the 'bacco, and the other things"

"I will give you five sovereigns for your note, my good man," said Miss Matty. "I think there is some great

mistake about it, for I am one of the shareholders, and I'm sure they would have told me if things had not

The shopman whispered a word or two across the table to Miss Matty. She looked at him with a dubious air.

"Perhaps so," said she. "But I don't pretend to understand business; I only know that if it is going to fail, and

if honest people are to lose their money because they have taken our notes I can't explain myself," said she,

suddenly becoming aware that she had got into a long sentence with four people for audience; "only I would

rather exchange my gold for the note, if you please," turning to the farmer, "and then you can take your wife

the shawl. It is only going without my gown a few days longer," she continued, speaking to me. "Then, I have

"Why, then it will only have been common honesty in me, as a shareholder, to have given this good man the

money. I am quite clear about it in my own mind; but, you know, I can never speak quite as comprehensibly

as others can, only you must give me your note, Mr Dobson, if you please, and go on with your purchases

The man looked at her with silent gratitude too awkward to put his thanks into words; but he hung back for

"I'm loth to make another one lose instead of me, if it is a loss; but, you see, five pounds is a deal of money to

a man with a family; and, as you say, ten to one in a day or two the note will be as good as gold again."

"The more reason why I should take it," said Miss Matty quietly. She pushed her sovereigns towards the man,

who slowly laid his note down in exchange. "Thank you. I will wait a day or two before I purchase any of

these silks; perhaps you will then have a greater choice. My dear, will you come upstairs?"

We inspected the fashions with as minute and curious an interest as if the gown to be made after them had

been bought. I could not see that the little event in the shop below had in the least damped Miss Matty's

curiosity as to the make of sleeves or the sit of skirts. She once or twice exchanged congratulations with me

on our private and leisurely view of the bonnets and shawls; but I was, all the time, not so sure that our

examination was so utterly private, for I caught glimpses of a figure dodging behind the cloaks and mantles;

and, by a dexterous move, I came face to face with Miss Pole, also in morning costume (the principal feature

of which was her being without teeth, and wearing a veil to conceal the deficiency), come on the same errand

as ourselves. But she quickly took her departure, because, as she said, she had a bad headache, and did not

As we came down through the shop, the civil Mr Johnson was awaiting us; he had been informed of the

exchange of the note for gold, and with much good feeling and real kindness, but with a little want of tact, he

wished to condole with Miss Matty, and impress upon her the true state of the case. I could only hope that he

had heard an exaggerated rumour for he said that her shares were worse than nothing, and that the bank could

not pay a shilling in the pound. I was glad that Miss Matty seemed still a little incredulous; but I could not tell

how much of this was real or assumed, with that selfcontrol which seemed habitual to ladies of Miss Matty's

standing in Cranford, who would have thought their dignity compromised by the slightest expression of

surprise, dismay, or any similar feeling to an inferior in station, or in a public shop. However, we walked

home very silently. I am ashamed to say, I believe I was rather vexed and annoyed at Miss Matty's conduct in

taking the note to herself so decidedly. I had so set my heart upon her having a new silk gown, which she

wanted sadly; in general she was so undecided anybody might turn her round; in this case I had felt that it

Somehow, after twelve o'clock, we both acknowledged to a sated curiosity about the fashions, and to a certain

fatigue of body (which was, in fact, depression of mind) that indisposed us to go out again. But still we never

spoke of the note; till, all at once, something possessed me to ask Miss Matty if she would think it her duty to

offer sovereigns for all the notes of the Town and County Bank she met with? I could have bitten my tongue

out the minute I had said it. She looked up rather sadly, and as if I had thrown a new perplexity into her

already distressed mind; and for a minute or two she did not speak. Then she said my own dear Miss Matty

"My dear, I never feel as if my mind was what people call very strong; and it's often hard enough work for

me to settle what I ought to do with the case right before me. I was very thankful to I was very thankful,

that I saw my duty this morning, with the poor man standing by me; but its rather a strain upon me to keep

thinking and thinking what I should do if such and such a thing happened; and, I believe, I had rather wait

and see what really does come; and I don't doubt I shall be helped then if I don't fidget myself, and get too

anxious beforehand. You know, love, I'm not like Deborah. If Deborah had lived, I've no doubt she would

We had neither of us much appetite for dinner, though we tried to talk cheerfully about indifferent things.

When we returned into the drawingroom, Miss Matty unlocked her desk and began to look over her

accountbooks. I was so penitent for what I had said in the morning, that I did not choose to take upon

myself the presumption to suppose that I could assist her; I rather left her alone, as, with puzzled brow, her

eye followed her pen up and down the ruled page. Byandby she shut the book, locked the desk, and came

and drew a chair to mine, where I sat in moody sorrow over the fire. I stole my hand into hers; she clasped it,

but did not speak a word. At last she said, with forced composure in her voice, "If that bank goes wrong, I

shall lose one hundred and fortynine pounds thirteen shillings and fourpence a year; I shall only have

thirteen pounds a year left." I squeezed her hand hard and tight. I did not know what to say. Presently (it was

too dark to see her face) I felt her fingers work convulsively in my grasp; and I knew she was going to speak

again. I heard the sobs in her voice as she said, "I hope it's not wrong not wicked but, oh! I am so glad

poor Deborah is spared this. She could not have borne to come down in the world she had such a noble,

This was all she said about the sister who had insisted upon investing their little property in that unlucky

bank. We were later in lighting the candle than usual that night, and until that light shamed us into speaking,

However, we took to our work after tea with a kind of forced cheerfulness (which soon became real as far as

it went), talking of that neverending wonder, Lady Glenmire's engagement. Miss Matty was almost coming

"I don't mean to deny that men are troublesome in a house. I don't judge from my own experience, for my

father was neatness itself, and wiped his shoes on coming in as carefully as any woman; but still a man has a

sort of knowledge of what should be done in difficulties, that it is very pleasant to have one at hand ready to

lean upon. Now, Lady Glenmire, instead of being tossed about, and wondering where she is to settle, will be

certain of a home among pleasant and kind people, such as our good Miss Pole and Mrs Forrester. And Mr

Hoggins is really a very personable man; and as for his manners, why, if they are not very polished, I have

known people with very good hearts and very clever minds too, who were not what some people reckoned

She fell off into a soft reverie about Mr Holbrook, and I did not interrupt her, I was so busy maturing a plan I

had had in my mind for some days, but which this threatened failure of the bank had brought to a crisis. That

night, after Miss Matty went to bed, I treacherously lighted the candle again, and sat down in the

drawingroom to compose a letter to the Aga Jenkyns, a letter which should affect him if he were Peter, and

yet seem a mere statement of dry facts if he were a stranger. The church clock pealed out two before I had

The next morning news came, both official and otherwise, that the Town and County Bank had stopped

She tried to speak quietly to me; but when she came to the actual fact that she would have but about five

"I am not crying for myself, dear," said she, wiping them away; "I believe I am crying for the very silly

thought of how my mother would grieve if she could know; she always cared for us so much more than for

herself. But many a poor person has less, and I am not very extravagant, and, thank God, when the neck of

mutton, and Martha's wages, and the rent are paid, I have not a farthing owing. Poor Martha! I think she'll be

Miss Matty smiled at me through her tears, and she would fain have had me see only the smile, not the tears.

IT was an example to me, and I fancy it might be to many others, to see how immediately Miss Matty set

about the retrenchment which she knew to be right under her altered circumstances. While she went down to

speak to Martha, and break the intelligence to her, I stole out with my letter to the Aga Jenkyns, and went to

the signor's lodgings to obtain the exact address. I bound the signora to secrecy; and indeed her military

manners had a degree of shortness and reserve in them which made her always say as little as possible, except

when under the pressure of strong excitement. Moreover (which made my secret doubly sure), the signor was

now so far recovered as to be looking forward to travelling and conjuring again in the space of a few days,

when he, his wife, and little Phoebe would leave Cranford. Indeed, I found him looking over a great black

and red placard, in which the Signor Brunoni's accomplishments were set forth, and to which only the name

of the town where he would next display them was wanting. He and his wife were so much absorbed in

deciding where the red letters would come in with most effect (it might have been the Rubric for that matter),

that it was some time before I could get my question asked privately, and not before I had given several

decisions, the which I questioned afterwards with equal wisdom of sincerity as soon as the signor threw in his

doubts and reasons on the important subject. At last I got the address, spelt by sound, and very queer it

looked. I dropped it in the post on my way home, and then for a minute I stood looking at the wooden pane

with a gaping slit which divided me from the letter but a moment ago in my hand. It was gone from me like

life, never to be recalled. It would get tossed about on the sea, and stained with seawaves perhaps, and be

carried among palmtrees, and scented with all tropical fragrance; the little piece of paper, but an hour ago so

familiar and commonplace, had set out on its race to the strange wild countries beyond the Ganges! But I

could not afford to lose much time on this speculation. I hastened home, that Miss Matty might not miss me.

Martha opened the door to me, her face swollen with crying. As soon as she saw me she burst out afresh, and

taking hold of my arm she pulled me in, and banged the door to, in order to ask me if indeed it was all true

"I'll never leave her! No; I won't. I telled her so, and said I could not think how she could find in her heart to

give me warning. I could not have had the face to do it, if I'd been her. I might ha' been just as good for

nothing as Mrs FitzAdam's Rosy, who struck for wages after living seven years and a half in one place. I

said I was not one to go and serve Mammon at that rate; that I knew when I'd got a good missus, if she didn't

"I'll not listen to reason," she said, now in full possession of her voice, which had been rather choked with

sobbing. "Reason always means what someone else has got to say. Now I think what I've got to say is good

enough reason; but reason or not, I'll say it, and I'll stick to it. I've money in the Savings Bank, and I've a

good stock of clothes, and I'm not going to leave Miss Matty. No, not if she gives me warning every hour in

She put her arms akimbo, as much as to say she defied me; and, indeed, I could hardly tell how to begin to

remonstrate with her, so much did I feel that Miss Matty, in her increasing infirmity, needed the attendance of

"I'm thankful you begin with 'well!' If you'd have begun with 'but,' as you did afore, I'd not ha' listened to you.

"I telled her so. A loss she'd never cease to be sorry for," broke in Martha triumphantly.

"Still, she will have so little so very little to live upon, that I don't see just now how she could find you

food she will even be pressed for her own. I tell you this, Martha, because I feel you are like a friend to

Apparently this was even a blacker view of the subject than Miss Matty had presented to her, for Martha just

sat down on the first chair that came to hand, and cried out loud (we had been standing in the kitchen).

At last she put her apron down, and looking me earnestly in the face, asked, "Was that the reason Miss Matty

wouldn't order a pudding today? She said she had no great fancy for sweet things, and you and she would

just have a mutton chop. But I'll be up to her. Never you tell, but I'll make her a pudding, and a pudding she'll

like, too, and I'll pay for it myself; so mind you see she eats it. Many a one has been comforted in their

I was rather glad that Martha's energy had taken the immediate and practical direction of puddingmaking,

for it staved off the quarrelsome discussion as to whether she should or should not leave Miss Matty's service.

She began to tie on a clean apron, and otherwise prepare herself for going to the shop for the butter, eggs, and

what else she might require. She would not use a scrap of the articles already in the house for her cookery,

but went to an old teapot in which her private store of money was deposited, and took out what she wanted.

I found Miss Matty very quiet, and not a little sad; but byandby she tried to smile for my sake. It was

settled that I was to write to my father, and ask him to come over and hold a consultation, and as soon as this

letter was despatched we began to talk over future plans. Miss Matty's idea was to take a single room, and

retain as much of her furniture as would be necessary to fit up this, and sell the rest, and there to quietly exist

upon what would remain after paying the rent. For my part, I was more ambitious and less contented. I

thought of all the things by which a woman, past middle age, and with the education common to ladies fifty

years ago, could earn or add to a living without materially losing caste; but at length I put even this last clause

Teaching was, of course, the first thing that suggested itself. If Miss Matty could teach children anything, it

would throw her among the little elves in whom her soul delighted. I ran over her accomplishments. Once

upon a time I had heard her say she could play "Ah! vous diraije, maman?" on the piano, but that was long,

long ago; that faint shadow of musical acquirement had died out years before. She had also once been able to

trace out patterns very nicely for muslin embroidery, by dint of placing a piece of silver paper over the design

to be copied, and holding both against the windowpane while she marked the scollop and eyeletholes. But

that was her nearest approach to the accomplishment of drawing, and I did not think it would go very far.

Then again, as to the branches of a solid English education fancy work and the use of the globes such as

the mistress of the Ladies' Seminary, to which all the tradespeople in Cranford sent their daughters, professed

to teach. Miss Matty's eyes were failing her, and I doubted if she could discover the number of threads in a

worstedwork pattern, or rightly appreciate the different shades required for Queen Adelaide's face in the

loyal woolwork now fashionable in Cranford. As for the use of the globes, I had never been able to find it

out myself, so perhaps I was not a good judge of Miss Matty's capability of instructing in this branch of

education; but it struck me that equators and tropics, and such mystical circles, were very imaginary lines

indeed to her, and that she looked upon the signs of the Zodiac as so many remnants of the Black Art.

What she piqued herself upon, as arts in which she excelled, was making candlelighters, or "spills" (as she

preferred calling them), of coloured paper, cut so as to resemble feathers, and knitting garters in a variety of

dainty stitches. I had once said, on receiving a present of an elaborate pair, that I should feel quite tempted to

drop one of them in the street, in order to have it admired; but I found this little joke (and it was a very little

one) was such a distress to her sense of propriety, and was taken with such anxious, earnest alarm, lest the

temptation might some day prove too strong for me, that I quite regretted having ventured upon it. A present

of these delicatelywrought garters, a bunch of gay "spills," or a set of cards on which sewingsilk was

wound in a mystical manner, were the wellknown tokens of Miss Matty's favour. But would any one pay to

have their children taught these arts? or, indeed, would Miss Matty sell, for filthy lucre, the knack and the

I had to come down to reading, writing, and arithmetic; and, in reading the chapter every morning, she always

coughed before coming to long words. I doubted her power of getting through a genealogical chapter, with

any number of coughs. Writing she did well and delicately but spelling! She seemed to think that the more

outoftheway this was, and the more trouble it cost her, the greater the compliment she paid to her

correspondent; and words that she would spell quite correctly in her letters to me became perfect enigmas

No! there was nothing she could teach to the rising generation of Cranford, unless they had been quick

learners and ready imitators of her patience, her humility, her sweetness, her quiet contentment with all that

she could not do. I pondered and pondered until dinner was announced by Martha, with a face all blubbered

Miss Matty had a few little peculiarities which Martha was apt to regard as whims below her attention, and

appeared to consider as childish fancies of which an old lady of fiftyeight should try and cure herself. But

today everything was attended to with the most careful regard. The bread was cut to the imaginary pattern

of excellence that existed in Miss Matty's mind, as being the way which her mother had preferred, the curtain

was drawn so as to exclude the dead brick wall of a neighbour's stable, and yet left so as to show every tender

leaf of the poplar which was bursting into spring beauty. Martha's tone to Miss Matty was just such as that

good, roughspoken servant usually kept sacred for little children, and which I had never heard her use to any

I had forgotten to tell Miss Matty about the pudding, and I was afraid she might not do justice to it, for she

had evidently very little appetite this day; so I seized the opportunity of letting her into the secret while

Martha took away the meat. Miss Matty's eyes filled with tears, and she could not speak, either to express

surprise or delight, when Martha returned bearing it aloft, made in the most wonderful representation of a lion

COUCHANT that ever was moulded. Martha's face gleamed with triumph as she set it down before Miss

Matty with an exultant "There!" Miss Matty wanted to speak her thanks, but could not; so she took Martha's

hand and shook it warmly, which set Martha off crying, and I myself could hardly keep up the necessary

composure. Martha burst out of the room, and Miss Matty had to clear her voice once or twice before she

could speak. At last she said, "I should like to keep this pudding under a glass shade, my dear!" and the

notion of the lion COUCHANT, with his currant eyes, being hoisted up to the place of honour on a

mantelpiece, tickled my hysterical fancy, and I began to laugh, which rather surprised Miss Matty.

"I am sure, dear, I have seen uglier things under a glass shade before now," said she.

So had I, many a time and oft, and I accordingly composed my countenance (and now I could hardly keep

from crying), and we both fell to upon the pudding, which was indeed excellent only every morsel seemed

We had too much to think about to talk much that afternoon. It passed over very tranquilly. But when the

teaurn was brought in a new thought came into my head. Why should not Miss Matty sell tea be an agent

to the East India Tea Company which then existed? I could see no objections to this plan, while the

advantages were many always supposing that Miss Matty could get over the degradation of condescending

to anything like trade. Tea was neither greasy nor sticky grease and stickiness being two of the qualities

which Miss Matty could not endure. No shopwindow would be required. A small, genteel notification of her

being licensed to sell tea would, it is true, be necessary, but I hoped that it could be placed where no one

would see it. Neither was tea a heavy article, so as to tax Miss Matty's fragile strength. The only thing against

While I was giving but absent answers to the questions Miss Matty was putting almost as absently we

heard a clumping sound on the stairs, and a whispering outside the door, which indeed once opened and shut

as if by some invisible agency. After a little while Martha came in, dragging after her a great tall young man,

all crimson with shyness, and finding his only relief in perpetually sleeking down his hair.

"Please, ma'am, he's only Jem Hearn," said Martha, by way of an introduction; and so out of breath was she

that I imagine she had had some bodily struggle before she could overcome his reluctance to be presented on

"And please, ma'am, he wants to marry me offhand. And please, ma'am, we want to take a lodger just one

quiet lodger, to make our two ends meet; and we'd take any house conformable; and, oh dear Miss Matty, if I

may be so bold, would you have any objections to lodging with us? Jem wants it as much as I do." [To Jem ]

"You great oaf! why can't you back me! But he does want it all the same, very bad don't you, Jem?

"It's not that," broke in Jem. "It's that you've taken me all on a sudden, and I didn't think for to get married so

soon and such quick words does flabbergast a man. It's not that I'm against it, ma'am" (addressing Miss

Matty), "only Martha has such quick ways with her when once she takes a thing into her head; and marriage,

ma'am marriage nails a man, as one may say. I dare say I shan't mind it after it's once over."

"Please, ma'am," said Martha who had plucked at his sleeve, and nudged him with her elbow, and

otherwise tried to interrupt him all the time he had been speaking "don't mind him, he'll come to; 'twas only

last night he was anaxing me, and anaxing me, and all the more because I said I could not think of it for

years to come, and now he's only taken aback with the suddenness of the joy; but you know, Jem, you are just

"Ay! if Miss Matty would lodge with us otherwise I've no mind to be cumbered with strange folk in the

house," said Jem, with a want of tact which I could see enraged Martha, who was trying to represent a lodger

as the great object they wished to obtain, and that, in fact, Miss Matty would be smoothing their path and

Miss Matty herself was bewildered by the pair; their, or rather Martha's sudden resolution in favour of

matrimony staggered her, and stood between her and the contemplation of the plan which Martha had at

"You've never let me abe for asking me for to fix when I would be married," said Martha her face all

afire, and ready to cry with vexation "and now you're shaming me before my missus and all."

"Nay, now! Martha don't ee! don't ee! only a man likes to have breathingtime," said Jem, trying to possess

himself of her hand, but in vain. Then seeing that she was more seriously hurt than he had imagined, he

seemed to try to rally his scattered faculties, and with more straightforward dignity than, ten minutes before, I

should have thought it possible for him to assume, he turned to Miss Matty, and said, "I hope, ma'am, you

know that I am bound to respect every one who has been kind to Martha. I always looked on her as to be my

wife some time; and she has often and often spoken of you as the kindest lady that ever was; and though the

plain truth is, I would not like to be troubled with lodgers of the common run, yet if, ma'am, you'd honour us

by living with us, I'm sure Martha would do her best to make you comfortable; and I'd keep out of your way

as much as I could, which I reckon would be the best kindness such an awkward chap as me could do."

Miss Matty had been very busy with taking off her spectacles, wiping them, and replacing them; but all she

could say was, "Don't let any thought of me hurry you into marriage: pray don't. Marriage is such a very

"But Miss Matilda will think of your plan, Martha," said I, struck with the advantages that it offered, and

unwilling to lose the opportunity of considering about it. "And I'm sure neither she nor I can ever forget your

"Why, yes, ma'am! I'm sure I mean kindly, though I'm a bit fluttered by being pushed straight ahead into

matrimony, as it were, and mayn't express myself conformable. But I'm sure I'm willing enough, and give me

time to get accustomed; so, Martha, wench, what's the use of crying so, and slapping me if I come near?"

This last was SOTTO VOCE, and had the effect of making Martha bounce out of the room, to be followed

and soothed by her lover. Whereupon Miss Matty sat down and cried very heartily, and accounted for it by

saying that the thought of Martha being married so soon gave her quite a shock, and that she should never

forgive herself if she thought she was hurrying the poor creature. I think my pity was more for Jem, of the

two; but both Miss Matty and I appreciated to the full the kindness of the honest couple, although we said

The next morning, very early, I received a note from Miss Pole, so mysteriously wrapped up, and with so

many seals on it to secure secrecy, that I had to tear the paper before I could unfold it. And when I came to

the writing I could hardly understand the meaning, it was so involved and oracular. I made out, however, that

I was to go to Miss Pole's at eleven o'clock; the number ELEVEN being written in full length as well as in

numerals, and A.M. twice dashed under, as if I were very likely to come at eleven at night, when all Cranford

was usually abed and asleep by ten. There was no signature except Miss Pole's initials reversed, P.E.; but as

Martha had given me the note, "with Miss Pole's kind regards," it needed no wizard to find out who sent it;

and if the writer's name was to be kept secret, it was very well that I was alone when Martha delivered it.

I went as requested to Miss Pole's. The door was opened to me by her little maid Lizzy in Sunday trim, as if

some grand event was impending over this workday. And the drawingroom upstairs was arranged in

accordance with this idea. The table was set out with the best green cardcloth, and writing materials upon it.

On the little chiffonier was a tray with a newlydecanted bottle of cowslip wine, and some ladies'finger

biscuits. Miss Pole herself was in solemn array, as if to receive visitors, although it was only eleven o'clock.

Mrs Forrester was there, crying quietly and sadly, and my arrival seemed only to call forth fresh tears. Before

we had finished our greetings, performed with lugubrious mystery of demeanour, there was another

rattattat, and Mrs Fitz Adam appeared, crimson with walking and excitement. It seemed as if this was all

the company expected; for now Miss Pole made several demonstrations of being about to open the business

of the meeting, by stirring the fire, opening and shutting the door, and coughing and blowing her nose. Then

she arranged us all round the table, taking care to place me opposite to her; and last of all, she inquired of me

if the sad report was true, as she feared it was, that Miss Matty had lost all her fortune?

Of course, I had but one answer to make; and I never saw more unaffected sorrow depicted on any

I wish Mrs Jamieson was here!" said Mrs Forrester at last; but to judge from Mrs FitzAdam's face, she could

"But without Mrs Jamieson," said Miss Pole, with just a sound of offended merit in her voice, "we, the ladies

of Cranford, in my drawingroom assembled, can resolve upon something. I imagine we are none of us what

may be called rich, though we all possess a genteel competency, sufficient for tastes that are elegant and

refined, and would not, if they could, be vulgarly ostentatious." (Here I observed Miss Pole refer to a small

"Miss Smith," she continued, addressing me (familiarly known as "Mary" to all the company assembled, but

this was a state occasion), "I have conversed in private I made it my business to do so yesterday afternoon

with these ladies on the misfortune which has happened to our friend, and one and all of us have agreed that

while we have a superfluity, it is not only a duty, but a pleasure a true pleasure, Mary!" her voice was

rather choked just here, and she had to wipe her spectacles before she could go on "to give what we can to

assist her Miss Matilda Jenkyns. Only in consideration of the feelings of delicate independence existing in

the mind of every refined female" I was sure she had got back to the card now "we wish to contribute our

mites in a secret and concealed manner, so as not to hurt the feelings I have referred to. And our object in

requesting you to meet us this morning is that, believing you are the daughter that your father is, in fact, her

confidential adviser, in all pecuniary matters, we imagined that, by consulting with him, you might devise

some mode in which our contribution could be made to appear the legal due which Miss Matilda Jenkyns

ought to receive from Probably your father, knowing her investments, can fill up the blank."

"I have expressed your meaning, ladies, have I not? And while Miss Smith considers what reply to make,

I had no great reply to make: I had more thankfulness at my heart for their kind thoughts than I cared to put

into words; and so I only mumbled out something to the effect "that I would name what Miss Pole had said to

my father, and that if anything could be arranged for dear Miss Matty," and here I broke down utterly, and

had to be refreshed with a glass of cowslip wine before I could check the crying which had been repressed for

the last two or three days. The worst was, all the ladies cried in concert. Even Miss Pole cried, who had said a

hundred times that to betray emotion before any one was a sign of weakness and want of selfcontrol. She

recovered herself into a slight degree of impatient anger, directed against me, as having set them all off; and,

moreover, I think she was vexed that I could not make a speech back in return for hers; and if I had known

beforehand what was to be said, and had a card on which to express the probable feelings that would rise in

my heart, I would have tried to gratify her. As it was, Mrs Forrester was the person to speak when we had

"I don't mind, among friends, stating that I no! I'm not poor exactly, but I don't think I'm what you may call

rich; I wish I were, for dear Miss Matty's sake but, if you please, I'll write down in a sealed paper what I

Now I saw why paper, pens, and ink were provided. Every lady wrote down the sum she could give annually,

signed the paper, and sealed it mysteriously. If their proposal was acceded to, my father was to be allowed to

open the papers, under pledge of secrecy. If not, they were to be returned to their writers.

When the ceremony had been gone through, I rose to depart; but each lady seemed to wish to have a private

conference with me. Miss Pole kept me in the drawingroom to explain why, in Mrs Jamieson's absence, she

had taken the lead in this "movement," as she was pleased to call it, and also to inform me that she had heard

from good sources that Mrs Jamieson was coming home directly in a state of high displeasure against her

sisterinlaw, who was forthwith to leave her house, and was, she believed, to return to Edinburgh that very

afternoon. Of course this piece of intelligence could not be communicated before Mrs FitzAdam, more

especially as Miss Pole was inclined to think that Lady Glenmire's engagement to Mr Hoggins could not

possibly hold against the blaze of Mrs Jamieson's displeasure. A few hearty inquiries after Miss Matty's

On coming downstairs I found Mrs Forrester waiting for me at the entrance to the diningparlour; she drew

me in, and when the door was shut, she tried two or three times to begin on some subject, which was so

unapproachable apparently, that I began to despair of our ever getting to a clear understanding. At last out it

came; the poor old lady trembling all the time as if it were a great crime which she was exposing to daylight,

in telling me how very, very little she had to live upon; a confession which she was brought to make from a

dread lest we should think that the small contribution named in her paper bore any proportion to her love and

regard for Miss Matty. And yet that sum which she so eagerly relinquished was, in truth, more than a

twentieth part of what she had to live upon, and keep house, and a little servingmaid, all as became one born

a Tyrrell. And when the whole income does not nearly amount to a hundred pounds, to give up a twentieth of

it will necessitate many careful economies, and many pieces of self denial, small and insignificant in the

world's account, but bearing a different value in another accountbook that I have heard of. She did so wish

she was rich, she said, and this wish she kept repeating, with no thought of herself in it, only with a longing,

It was some time before I could console her enough to leave her; and then, on quitting the house, I was

waylaid by Mrs FitzAdam, who had also her confidence to make of pretty nearly the opposite description.

She had not liked to put down all that she could afford and was ready to give. She told me she thought she

never could look Miss Matty in the face again if she presumed to be giving her so much as she should like to

do. "Miss Matty!" continued she, "that I thought was such a fine young lady when I was nothing but a

country girl, coming to market with eggs and butter and such like things. For my father, though welltodo,

would always make me go on as my mother had done before me, and I had to come into Cranford every

Saturday, and see after sales, and prices, and what not. And one day, I remember, I met Miss Matty in the

lane that leads to Combehurst; she was walking on the footpath, which, you know, is raised a good way

above the road, and a gentleman rode beside her, and was talking to her, and she was looking down at some

primroses she had gathered, and pulling them all to pieces, and I do believe she was crying. But after she had

passed, she turned round and ran after me to ask oh, so kindly about my poor mother, who lay on her

deathbed; and when I cried she took hold of my hand to comfort me and the gentleman waiting for her all

the time and her poor heart very full of something, I am sure; and I thought it such an honour to be spoken

to in that pretty way by the rector's daughter, who visited at Arley Hall. I have loved her ever since, though

perhaps I'd no right to do it; but if you can think of any way in which I might be allowed to give a little more

without any one knowing it, I should be so much obliged to you, my dear. And my brother would be

delighted to doctor her for nothing medicines, leeches, and all. I know that he and her ladyship (my dear, I

little thought in the days I was telling you of that I should ever come to be sisterinlaw to a ladyship!)

I told her I was quite sure of it, and promised all sorts of things in my anxiety to get home to Miss Matty, who

might well be wondering what had become of me absent from her two hours without being able to account

for it. She had taken very little note of time, however, as she had been occupied in numberless little

arrangements preparatory to the great step of giving up her house. It was evidently a relief to her to be doing

something in the way of retrenchment, for, as she said, whenever she paused to think, the recollection of the

poor fellow with his bad fivepound note came over her, and she felt quite dishonest; only if it made her so

uncomfortable, what must it not be doing to the directors of the bank, who must know so much more of the

misery consequent upon this failure? She almost made me angry by dividing her sympathy between these

directors (whom she imagined overwhelmed by selfreproach for the mismanagement of other people's

affairs) and those who were suffering like her. Indeed, of the two, she seemed to think poverty a lighter

burden than selfreproach; but I privately doubted if the directors would agree with her.

Old hoards were taken out and examined as to their money value which luckily was small, or else I don't

know how Miss Matty would have prevailed upon herself to part with such things as her mother's

weddingring, the strange, uncouth brooch with which her father had disfigured his shirtfrill, However, we

arranged things a little in order as to their pecuniary estimation, and were all ready for my father when he

I am not going to weary you with the details of all the business we went through; and one reason for not

telling about them is, that I did not understand what we were doing at the time, and cannot recollect it now.

Miss Matty and I sat assenting to accounts, and schemes, and reports, and documents, of which I do not

believe we either of us understood a word; for my father was clearheaded and decisive, and a capital man of

business, and if we made the slightest inquiry, or expressed the slightest want of comprehension, he had a

sharp way of saying, "Eh? eh? it's as dear as daylight. What's your objection?" And as we had not

comprehended anything of what he had proposed, we found it rather difficult to shape our objections; in fact,

we never were sure if we had any. So presently Miss Matty got into a nervously acquiescent state, and said

"Yes," and "Certainly," at every pause, whether required or not; but when I once joined in as chorus to a

"Decidedly," pronounced by Miss Matty in a tremblingly dubious tone, my father fired round at me and asked

me "What there was to decide?" And I am sure to this day I have never known. But, in justice to him, I must

say he had come over from Drumble to help Miss Matty when he could ill spare the time, and when his own

While Miss Matty was out of the room giving orders for luncheon and sadly perplexed between her desire

of honouring my father by a delicate, dainty meal, and her conviction that she had no right, now that all her

money was gone, to indulge this desire I told him of the meeting of the Cranford ladies at Miss Pole's the

day before. He kept brushing his hand before his eyes as I spoke and when I went back to Martha's offer the

evening before, of receiving Miss Matty as a lodger, he fairly walked away from me to the window, and

began drumming with his fingers upon it. Then he turned abruptly round, and said, "See, Mary, how a good,

innocent life makes friends all around. Confound it! I could make a good lesson out of it if I were a parson;

but, as it is, I can't get a tail to my sentences only I'm sure you feel what I want to say. You and I will have

The lunch a hot savoury muttonchop, and a little of the cold loin sliced and fried was now brought in.

Every morsel of this last dish was finished, to Martha's great gratification. Then my father bluntly told Miss

Matty he wanted to talk to me alone, and that he would stroll out and see some of the old places, and then I

could tell her what plan we thought desirable. Just before we went out, she called me back and said,

"Remember, dear, I'm the only one left I mean, there's no one to be hurt by what I do. I'm willing to do

anything that's right and honest; and I don't think, if Deborah knows where she is, she'll care so very much if

I'm not genteel; because, you see, she'll know all, dear. Only let me see what I can do, and pay the poor

I gave her a hearty kiss, and ran after my father. The result of our conversation was this. If all parties were

agreeable, Martha and Jem were to be married with as little delay as possible, and they were to live on in

Miss Matty's present abode; the sum which the Cranford ladies had agreed to contribute annually being

sufficient to meet the greater part of the rent, and leaving Martha free to appropriate what Miss Matty should

pay for her lodgings to any little extra comforts required. About the sale, my father was dubious at first. He

said the old rectory furniture, however carefully used and reverently treated, would fetch very little; and that

little would be but as a drop in the sea of the debts of the Town and County Bank. But when I represented

how Miss Matty's tender conscience would be soothed by feeling that she had done what she could, he gave

way; especially after I had told him the fivepound note adventure, and he had scolded me well for allowing

it. I then alluded to my idea that she might add to her small income by selling tea; and, to my surprise (for I

had nearly given up the plan), my father grasped at it with all the energy of a tradesman. I think he reckoned

his chickens before they were hatched, for he immediately ran up the profits of the sales that she could effect

in Cranford to more than twenty pounds a year. The small diningparlour was to be converted into a shop,

without any of its degrading characteristics; a table was to be the counter; one window was to be retained

unaltered, and the other changed into a glass door. I evidently rose in his estimation for having made this

But she was patient and content with all our arrangements. She knew, she said, that we should do the best we

could for her; and she only hoped, only stipulated, that she should pay every farthing that she could be said to

owe, for her father's sake, who had been so respected in Cranford. My father and I had agreed to say as little

as possible about the bank, indeed never to mention it again, if it could be helped. Some of the plans were

evidently a little perplexing to her; but she had seen me sufficiently snubbed in the morning for want of

comprehension to venture on too many inquiries now; and all passed over well with a hope on her part that no

one would be hurried into marriage on her account. When we came to the proposal that she should sell tea, I

could see it was rather a shock to her; not on account of any personal loss of gentility involved, but only

because she distrusted her own powers of action in a new line of life, and would timidly have preferred a little

more privation to any exertion for which she feared she was unfitted. However, when she saw my father was

bent upon it, she sighed, and said she would try; and if she did not do well, of course she might give it up.

One good thing about it was, she did not think men ever bought tea; and it was of men particularly she was

afraid. They had such sharp loud ways with them; and did up accounts, and counted their change so quickly!

Now, if she might only sell comfits to children, she was sure she could please them!

BEFORE I left Miss Matty at Cranford everything had been comfortably arranged for her. Even Mrs

Jamieson's approval of her selling tea had been gained. That oracle had taken a few days to consider whether

by so doing Miss Matty would forfeit her right to the privileges of society in Cranford. I think she had some

little idea of mortifying Lady Glenmire by the decision she gave at last; which was to this effect: that whereas

a married woman takes her husband's rank by the strict laws of precedence, an unmarried woman retains the

station her father occupied. So Cranford was allowed to visit Miss Matty; and, whether allowed or not, it

But what was our surprise our dismay when we learnt that Mr and MRS HOGGINS were returning on the

following Tuesday! Mrs Hoggins! Had she absolutely dropped her title, and so, in a spirit of bravado, cut the

aristocracy to become a Hoggins! She, who might have been called Lady Glenmire to her dying day! Mrs

Jamieson was pleased. She said it only convinced her of what she had known from the first, that the creature

had a low taste. But "the creature" looked very happy on Sunday at church; nor did we see it necessary to

keep our veils down on that side of our bonnets on which Mr and Mrs Hoggins sat, as Mrs Jamieson did;

thereby missing all the smiling glory of his face, and all the becoming blushes of hers. I am not sure if Martha

and Jem looked more radiant in the afternoon, when they, too, made their first appearance. Mrs Jamieson

soothed the turbulence of her soul by having the blinds of her windows drawn down, as if for a funeral, on the

day when Mr and Mrs Hoggins received callers; and it was with some difficulty that she was prevailed upon

to continue the ST JAMES'S CHRONICLE, so indignant was she with its having inserted the announcement

Miss Matty's sale went off famously. She retained the furniture of her sittingroom and bedroom; the former

of which she was to occupy till Martha could meet with a lodger who might wish to take it; and into this

sittingroom and bedroom she had to cram all sorts of things, which were (the auctioneer assured her) bought

in for her at the sale by an unknown friend. I always suspected Mrs FitzAdam of this; but she must have had

an accessory, who knew what articles were particularly regarded by Miss Matty on account of their

associations with her early days. The rest of the house looked rather bare, to be sure; all except one tiny

bedroom, of which my father allowed me to purchase the furniture for my occasional use in case of Miss

I had expended my own small store in buying all manner of comfits and lozenges, in order to tempt the little

people whom Miss Matty loved so much to come about her. Tea in bright green canisters, and comfits in

tumblers Miss Matty and I felt quite proud as we looked round us on the evening before the shop was to be

opened. Martha had scoured the boarded floor to a white cleanness, and it was adorned with a brilliant piece

of oilcloth, on which customers were to stand before the tablecounter. The wholesome smell of plaster and

whitewash pervaded the apartment. A very small "Matilda Jenkyns, licensed to sell tea," was hidden under

the lintel of the new door, and two boxes of tea, with cabalistic inscriptions all over them, stood ready to

Miss Matty, as I ought to have mentioned before, had had some scruples of conscience at selling tea when

there was already Mr Johnson in the town, who included it among his numerous commodities; and, before

she could quite reconcile herself to the adoption of her new business, she had trotted down to his shop,

unknown to me, to tell him of the project that was entertained, and to inquire if it was likely to injure his

business. My father called this idea of hers "great nonsense," and "wondered how tradespeople were to get on

if there was to be a continual consulting of each other's interests, which would put a stop to all competition

directly." And, perhaps, it would not have done in Drumble, but in Cranford it answered very well; for not

only did Mr Johnson kindly put at rest all Miss Matty's scruples and fear of injuring his business, but I have

reason to know he repeatedly sent customers to her, saying that the teas he kept were of a common kind, but

that Miss Jenkyns had all the choice sorts. And expensive tea is a very favourite luxury with welltodo

tradespeople and rich farmers' wives, who turn up their noses at the Congou and Souchong prevalent at many

tables of gentility, and will have nothing else than Gunpowder and Pekoe for themselves.

But to return to Miss Matty. It was really very pleasant to see how her unselfishness and simple sense of

justice called out the same good qualities in others. She never seemed to think any one would impose upon

her, because she should be so grieved to do it to them. I have heard her put a stop to the asseverations of the

man who brought her coals by quietly saying, "I am sure you would be sorry to bring me wrong weight;" and

if the coals were short measure that time, I don't believe they ever were again. People would have felt as

much ashamed of presuming on her good faith as they would have done on that of a child. But my father says

"such simplicity might be very well in Cranford, but would never do in the world." And I fancy the world

must be very bad, for with all my father's suspicion of every one with whom he has dealings, and in spite of

all his many precautions, he lost upwards of a thousand pounds by roguery only last year.

I just stayed long enough to establish Miss Matty in her new mode of life, and to pack up the library, which

the rector had purchased. He had written a very kind letter to Miss Matty, saying "how glad he should be to

take a library, so well selected as he knew that the late Mr Jenkyns's must have been, at any valuation put

upon them." And when she agreed to this, with a touch of sorrowful gladness that they would go back to the

rectory and be arranged on the accustomed walls once more, he sent word that he feared that he had not room

for them all, and perhaps Miss Matty would kindly allow him to leave some volumes on her shelves. But

Miss Matty said that she had her Bible and "Johnson's Dictionary," and should not have much time for

reading, she was afraid; still, I retained a few books out of consideration for the rector's kindness.

The money which he had paid, and that produced by the sale, was partly expended in the stock of tea, and

part of it was invested against a rainy day I.E. old age or illness. It was but a small sum, it is true; and it

occasioned a few evasions of truth and white lies (all of which I think very wrong indeed in theory and

would rather not put them in practice), for we knew Miss Matty would be perplexed as to her duty if she were

aware of any little reserve fund being made for her while the debts of the bank remained unpaid. Moreover,

she had never been told of the way in which her friends were contributing to pay the rent. I should have liked

to tell her this, but the mystery of the affair gave a piquancy to their deed of kindness which the ladies were

unwilling to give up; and at first Martha had to shirk many a perplexed question as to her ways and means of

living in such a house, but byandby Miss Matty's prudent uneasiness sank down into acquiescence with the

I left Miss Matty with a good heart. Her sales of tea during the first two days had surpassed my most

sanguine expectations. The whole country round seemed to be all out of tea at once. The only alteration I

could have desired in Miss Matty's way of doing business was, that she should not have so plaintively

entreated some of her customers not to buy green tea running it down as a slow poison, sure to destroy the

nerves, and produce all manner of evil. Their pertinacity in taking it, in spite of all her warnings, distressed

her so much that I really thought she would relinquish the sale of it, and so lose half her custom; and I was

driven to my wits' end for instances of longevity entirely attributable to a persevering use of green tea. But

the final argument, which settled the question, was a happy reference of mine to the trainoil and tallow

candles which the Esquimaux not only enjoy but digest. After that she acknowledged that "one man's meat

might be another man's poison," and contented herself thence forward with an occasional remonstrance

when she thought the purchaser was too young and innocent to be acquainted with the evil effects green tea

produced on some constitutions, and an habitual sigh when people old enough to choose more wisely would

I went over from Drumble once a quarter at least to settle the accounts, and see after the necessary business

letters. And, speaking of letters, I began to be very much ashamed of remembering my letter to the Aga

Jenkyns, and very glad I had never named my writing to any one. I only hoped the letter was lost. No answer

About a year after Miss Matty set up shop, I received one of Martha's hieroglyphics, begging me to come to

Cranford very soon. I was afraid that Miss Matty was ill, and went off that very afternoon, and took Martha

by surprise when she saw me on opening the door. We went into the kitchen as usual, to have our confidential

conference, and then Martha told me she was expecting her confinement very soon in a week or two; and

she did not think Miss Matty was aware of it, and she wanted me to break the news to her, "for indeed, miss,"

continued Martha, crying hysterically, "I'm afraid she won't approve of it, and I'm sure I don't know who is to

I comforted Martha by telling her I would remain till she was about again, and only wished she had told me

her reason for this sudden summons, as then I would have brought the requisite stock of clothes. But Martha

was so tearful and tenderspirited, and unlike her usual self, that I said as little as possible about myself, and

endeavoured rather to comfort Martha under all the probable and possible misfortunes which came crowding

I then stole out of the housedoor, and made my appearance as if I were a customer in the shop, just to take

Miss Matty by surprise, and gain an idea of how she looked in her new situation. It was warm May weather,

so only the little halfdoor was closed; and Miss Matty sat behind the counter, knitting an elaborate pair of

garters; elaborate they seemed to me, but the difficult stitch was no weight upon her mind, for she was

singing in a low voice to herself as her needles went rapidly in and out. I call it singing, but I dare say a

musician would not use that word to the tuneless yet sweet humming of the low worn voice. I found out from

the words, far more than from the attempt at the tune, that it was the Old Hundredth she was crooning to

herself; but the quiet continuous sound told of content, and gave me a pleasant feeling, as I stood in the street

just outside the door, quite in harmony with that soft May morning. I went in. At first she did not catch who it

was, and stood up as if to serve me; but in another minute watchful pussy had clutched her knitting, which

was dropped in eager joy at seeing me. I found, after we had had a little conversation, that it was as Martha

said, and that Miss Matty had no idea of the approaching household event. So I thought I would let things

take their course, secure that when I went to her with the baby in my arms, I should obtain that forgiveness

for Martha which she was needlessly frightening herself into believing that Miss Matty would withhold,

under some notion that the new claimant would require attentions from its mother that it would be faithless

But I was right. I think that must be an hereditary quality, for my father says he is scarcely ever wrong. One

morning, within a week after I arrived, I went to call Miss Matty, with a little bundle of flannel in my arms.

She was very much awestruck when I showed her what it was, and asked for her spectacles off the

dressingtable, and looked at it curiously, with a sort of tender wonder at its small perfection of parts. She

could not banish the thought of the surprise all day, but went about on tiptoe, and was very silent. But she

stole up to see Martha and they both cried with joy, and she got into a complimentary speech to Jem, and did

not know how to get out of it again, and was only extricated from her dilemma by the sound of the shopbell,

which was an equal relief to the shy, proud, honest Jem, who shook my hand so vigorously when I

I had a busy life while Martha was laid up. I attended on Miss Matty, and prepared her meals; I cast up her

accounts, and examined into the state of her canisters and tumblers. I helped her, too, occasionally, in the

shop; and it gave me no small amusement, and sometimes a little uneasiness, to watch her ways there. If a

little child came in to ask for an ounce of almondcomfits (and four of the large kind which Miss Matty sold

weighed that much), she always added one more by "way of makeweight," as she called it, although the

scale was handsomely turned before; and when I remonstrated against this, her reply was, "The little things

like it so much!" There was no use in telling her that the fifth comfit weighed a quarter of an ounce, and made

every sale into a loss to her pocket. So I remembered the green tea, and winged my shaft with a feather out of

her own plumage. I told her how unwholesome almondcomfits were, and how ill excess in them might

make the little children. This argument produced some effect; for, henceforward, instead of the fifth comfit,

she always told them to hold out their tiny palms, into which she shook either peppermint or ginger lozenges,

as a preventive to the dangers that might arise from the previous sale. Altogether the lozenge trade, conducted

on these principles, did not promise to be remunerative; but I was happy to find she had made more than

twenty pounds during the last year by her sales of tea; and, moreover, that now she was accustomed to it, she

did not dislike the employment, which brought her into kindly intercourse with many of the people round

about. If she gave them good weight, they, in their turn, brought many a little country present to the "old

rector's daughter"; a cream cheese, a few newlaid eggs, a little fresh ripe fruit, a bunch of flowers. The

As for Cranford in general, it was going on much as usual. The Jamieson and Hoggins feud still raged, if a

feud it could be called, when only one side cared much about it. Mr and Mrs Hoggins were very happy

together, and, like most very happy people, quite ready to be friendly; indeed, Mrs Hoggins was really

desirous to be restored to Mrs Jamieson's good graces, because of the former intimacy. But Mrs Jamieson

considered their very happiness an insult to the Glenmire family, to which she had still the honour to belong,

and she doggedly refused and rejected every advance. Mr Mulliner, like a faithful clansman, espoused his

mistress' side with ardour. If he saw either Mr or Mrs Hoggins, he would cross the street, and appear

absorbed in the contemplation of life in general, and his own path in particular, until he had passed them by.

Miss Pole used to amuse herself with wondering what in the world Mrs Jamieson would do, if either she, or

Mr Mulliner, or any other member of her household was taken ill; she could hardly have the face to call in Mr

Hoggins after the way she had behaved to them. Miss Pole grew quite impatient for some indisposition or

accident to befall Mrs Jamieson or her dependents, in order that Cranford might see how she would act under

Martha was beginning to go about again, and I had already fixed a limit, not very far distant, to my visit,

when one afternoon, as I was sitting in the shopparlour with Miss Matty I remember the weather was

colder now than it had been in May, three weeks before, and we had a fire and kept the door fully closed

we saw a gentleman go slowly past the window, and then stand opposite to the door, as if looking out for the

name which we had so carefully hidden. He took out a double eyeglass and peered about for some time

before he could discover it. Then he came in. And, all on a sudden, it flashed across me that it was the Aga

himself! For his clothes had an outoftheway foreign cut about them, and his face was deep brown, as if

tanned and retanned by the sun. His complexion contrasted oddly with his plentiful snowwhite hair, his

eyes were dark and piercing, and he had an odd way of contracting them and puckering up his cheeks into

innumerable wrinkles when he looked earnestly at objects. He did so to Miss Matty when he first came in.

His glance had first caught and lingered a little upon me, but then turned, with the peculiar searching look I

have described, to Miss Matty. She was a little fluttered and nervous, but no more so than she always was

when any man came into her shop. She thought that he would probably have a note, or a sovereign at least,

for which she would have to give change, which was an operation she very much disliked to perform. But the

present customer stood opposite to her, without asking for anything, only looking fixedly at her as he

drummed upon the table with his fingers, just for all the world as Miss Jenkyns used to do. Miss Matty was

on the point of asking him what he wanted (as she told me afterwards), when he turned sharp to me: "Is your

All my doubts as to his identity were set at rest, and I only wondered what he would say or do next, and how

Miss Matty would stand the joyful shock of what he had to reveal. Apparently he was at a loss how to

announce himself, for he looked round at last in search of something to buy, so as to gain time, and, as it

happened, his eye caught on the almondcomfits, and he boldly asked for a pound of "those things." I doubt

if Miss Matty had a whole pound in the shop, and, besides the unusual magnitude of the order, she was

distressed with the idea of the indigestion they would produce, taken in such unlimited quantities. She looked

up to remonstrate. Something of tender relaxation in his face struck home to her heart. She said, "It is oh,

sir! can you be Peter?" and trembled from head to foot. In a moment he was round the table and had her in his

arms, sobbing the tearless cries of old age. I brought her a glass of wine, for indeed her colour had changed so

as to alarm me and Mr Peter too. He kept saying, "I have been too sudden for you, Matty I have, my little

I proposed that she should go at once up into the drawingroom and lie down on the sofa there. She looked

wistfully at her brother, whose hand she had held tight, even when nearly fainting; but on his assuring her that

I thought that the best I could do was to run and put the kettle on the fire for early tea, and then to attend to

the shop, leaving the brother and sister to exchange some of the many thousand things they must have to say.

I had also to break the news to Martha, who received it with a burst of tears which nearly infected me. She

kept recovering herself to ask if I was sure it was indeed Miss Matty's brother, for I had mentioned that he

had grey hair, and she had always heard that he was a very handsome young man. Something of the same

kind perplexed Miss Matty at teatime, when she was installed in the great easychair opposite to Mr

Jenkyns in order to gaze her fill. She could hardly drink for looking at him, and as for eating, that was out of

"I suppose hot climates age people very quickly," said she, almost to herself. "When you left Cranford you

"Ah, true! yes, I suppose you and I are getting old. But still I did not think we were so very old! But white

hair is very becoming to you, Peter," she continued a little afraid lest she had hurt him by revealing how his

"I suppose I forgot dates too, Matty, for what do you think I have brought for you from India? I have an

Indian muslin gown and a pearl necklace for you somewhere in my chest at Portsmouth." He smiled as if

amused at the idea of the incongruity of his presents with the appearance of his sister; but this did not strike

her all at once, while the elegance of the articles did. I could see that for a moment her imagination dwelt

complacently on the idea of herself thus attired; and instinctively she put her hand up to her throat that little

delicate throat which (as Miss Pole had told me) had been one of her youthful charms; but the hand met the

touch of folds of soft muslin in which she was always swathed up to her chin, and the sensation recalled a

sense of the unsuitableness of a pearl necklace to her age. She said, "I'm afraid I'm too old; but it was very

kind of you to think of it. They are just what I should have liked years ago when I was young."

"So I thought, my little Matty. I remembered your tastes; they were so like my dear mother's." At the mention

of that name the brother and sister clasped each other's hands yet more fondly, and, although they were

perfectly silent, I fancied they might have something to say if they were unchecked by my presence, and I got

up to arrange my room for Mr Peter's occupation that night, intending myself to share Miss Matty's bed. But

at my movement, he started up. "I must go and settle about a room at the 'George.' My carpetbag is there

"No!" said Miss Matty, in great distress "you must not go; please, dear Peter pray, Mary oh! you must

She was so much agitated that we both promised everything she wished. Peter sat down again and gave her

his hand, which for better security she held in both of hers, and I left the room to accomplish my

Long, long into the night, far, far into the morning, did Miss Matty and I talk. She had much to tell me of her

brother's life and adventures, which he had communicated to her as they had sat alone. She said all was

thoroughly clear to her; but I never quite understood the whole story; and when in after days I lost my awe of

Mr Peter enough to question him myself, he laughed at my curiosity, and told me stories that sounded so very

much like Baron Munchausen's, that I was sure he was making fun of me. What I heard from Miss Matty was

that he had been a volunteer at the siege of Rangoon; had been taken prisoner by the Burmese; and somehow

obtained favour and eventual freedom from knowing how to bleed the chief of the small tribe in some case of

dangerous illness; that on his release from years of captivity he had had his letters returned from England

with the ominous word "Dead" marked upon them; and, believing himself to be the last of his race, he had

settled down as an indigo planter, and had proposed to spend the remainder of his life in the country to whose

inhabitants and modes of life he had become habituated, when my letter had reached him; and, with the odd

vehemence which characterised him in age as it had done in youth, he had sold his land and all his

possessions to the first purchaser, and come home to the poor old sister, who was more glad and rich than any

princess when she looked at him. She talked me to sleep at last, and then I was awakened by a slight sound at

the door, for which she begged my pardon as she crept penitently into bed; but it seems that when I could no

longer confirm her belief that the longlost was really here under the same roof she had begun to fear lest

it was only a waking dream of hers; that there never had been a Peter sitting by her all that blessed evening

but that the real Peter lay dead far away beneath some wild sea wave, or under some strange eastern tree.

And so strong had this nervous feeling of hers become, that she was fain to get up and go and convince

herself that he was really there by listening through the door to his even, regular breathing I don't like to

call it snoring, but I heard it myself through two closed doors and by andby it soothed Miss Matty to

I don't believe Mr Peter came home from India as rich as a nabob; he even considered himself poor, but

neither he nor Miss Matty cared much about that. At any rate, he had enough to live upon "very genteelly" at

Cranford; he and Miss Matty together. And a day or two after his arrival, the shop was closed, while troops of

little urchins gleefully awaited the shower of comfits and lozenges that came from time to time down upon

their faces as they stood up gazing at Miss Matty's drawingroom windows. Occasionally Miss Matty

would say to them (halfhidden behind the curtains), "My dear children, don't make yourselves ill;" but a

strong arm pulled her back, and a more rattling shower than ever succeeded. A part of the tea was sent in

presents to the Cranford ladies; and some of it was distributed among the old people who remembered Mr

Peter in the days of his frolicsome youth. The Indian muslin gown was reserved for darling Flora Gordon

(Miss Jessie Brown's daughter). The Gordons had been on the Continent for the last few years, but were now

expected to return very soon; and Miss Matty, in her sisterly pride, anticipated great delight in the joy of

showing them Mr Peter. The pearl necklace disappeared; and about that time many handsome and useful

presents made their appearance in the households of Miss Pole and Mrs Forrester; and some rare and delicate

Indian ornaments graced the drawingrooms of Mrs Jamieson and Mrs FitzAdam. I myself was not

forgotten. Among other things, I had the handsomestbound and best edition of Dr Johnson's works that

could be procured; and dear Miss Matty, with tears in her eyes, begged me to consider it as a present from her

sister as well as herself. In short, no one was forgotten; and, what was more, every one, however

insignificant, who had shown kindness to Miss Matty at any time, was sure of Mr Peter's cordial regard.

IT was not surprising that Mr Peter became such a favourite at Cranford. The ladies vied with each other who

should admire him most; and no wonder, for their quiet lives were astonishingly stirred up by the arrival from

India especially as the person arrived told more wonderful stories than Sindbad the Sailor; and, as Miss

Pole said, was quite as good as an Arabian Night any evening. For my own part, I had vibrated all my life

between Drumble and Cranford, and I thought it was quite possible that all Mr Peter's stories might be true,

although wonderful; but when I found that, if we swallowed an anecdote of tolerable magnitude one week,

we had the dose considerably increased the next, I began to have my doubts; especially as I noticed that when

his sister was present the accounts of Indian life were comparatively tame; not that she knew more than we

did, perhaps less. I noticed also that when the rector came to call, Mr Peter talked in a different way about the

countries he had been in. But I don't think the ladies in Cranford would have considered him such a

wonderful traveller if they had only heard him talk in the quiet way he did to him. They liked him the better,

One day, at a select party in his honour, which Miss Pole gave, and from which, as Mrs Jamieson honoured it

with her presence, and had even offered to send Mr Mulliner to wait, Mr and Mrs Hoggins and Mrs

FitzAdam were necessarily excluded one day at Miss Pole's, Mr Peter said he was tired of sitting upright

against the hard backed uneasy chairs, and asked if he might not indulge himself in sitting crosslegged.

Miss Pole's consent was eagerly given, and down he went with the utmost gravity. But when Miss Pole asked

me, in an audible whisper, "if he did not remind me of the Father of the Faithful?" I could not help thinking

of poor Simon Jones, the lame tailor, and while Mrs Jamieson slowly commented on the elegance and

convenience of the attitude, I remembered how we had all followed that lady's lead in condemning Mr

Hoggins for vulgarity because he simply crossed his legs as he sat still on his chair. Many of Mr Peter's ways

of eating were a little strange amongst such ladies as Miss Pole, and Miss Matty, and Mrs Jamieson,

especially when I recollected the untasted green peas and two pronged forks at poor Mr Holbrook's dinner.

The mention of that gentleman's name recalls to my mind a conversation between Mr Peter and Miss Matty

one evening in the summer after he returned to Cranford. The day had been very hot, and Miss Matty had

been much oppressed by the weather, in the heat of which her brother revelled. I remember that she had been

unable to nurse Martha's baby, which had become her favourite employment of late, and which was as much

at home in her arms as in its mother's, as long as it remained a lightweight, portable by one so fragile as

Miss Matty. This day to which I refer, Miss Matty had seemed more than usually feeble and languid, and

only revived when the sun went down, and her sofa was wheeled to the open window, through which,

although it looked into the principal street of Cranford, the fragrant smell of the neighbouring hayfields came

in every now and then, borne by the soft breezes that stirred the dull air of the summer twilight, and then died

away. The silence of the sultry atmosphere was lost in the murmuring noises which came in from many an

open window and door; even the children were abroad in the street, late as it was (between ten and eleven),

enjoying the game of play for which they had not had spirits during the heat of the day. It was a source of

satisfaction to Miss Matty to see how few candles were lighted, even in the apartments of those houses from

which issued the greatest signs of life. Mr Peter, Miss Matty, and I had all been quiet, each with a separate

"Do you know, little Matty, I could have sworn you were on the high road to matrimony when I left England

that last time! If anybody had told me you would have lived and died an old maid then, I should have laughed

Miss Matty made no reply, and I tried in vain to think of some subject which should effectually turn the

"It was Holbrook, that fine manly fellow who lived at Woodley, that I used to think would carry off my little

Matty. You would not think it now, I dare say, Mary; but this sister of mine was once a very pretty girl at

least, I thought so, and so I've a notion did poor Holbrook. What business had he to die before I came home

to thank him for all his kindness to a goodfornothing cub as I was? It was that that made me first think he

cared for you; for in all our fishing expeditions it was Matty, Matty, we talked about. Poor Deborah! What a

lecture she read me on having asked him home to lunch one day, when she had seen the Arley carriage in the

town, and thought that my lady might call. Well, that's long years ago; more than half a lifetime, and yet it

seems like yesterday! I don't know a fellow I should have liked better as a brotherinlaw. You must have

played your cards badly, my little Matty, somehow or another wanted your brother to be a good

gobetween, eh, little one?" said he, putting out his hand to take hold of hers as she lay on the sofa. "Why,

what's this? you're shivering and shaking, Matty, with that confounded open window. Shut it, Mary, this

I did so, and then stooped down to kiss Miss Matty, and see if she really were chilled. She caught at my hand,

and gave it a hard squeeze but unconsciously, I think for in a minute or two she spoke to us quite in her

usual voice, and smiled our uneasiness away, although she patiently submitted to the prescriptions we

enforced of a warm bed and a glass of weak negus. I was to leave Cranford the next day, and before I went I

saw that all the effects of the open window had quite vanished. I had superintended most of the alterations

necessary in the house and household during the latter weeks of my stay. The shop was once more a parlour:

There had been some talk of establishing Martha and Jem in another house, but Miss Matty would not hear of

this. Indeed, I never saw her so much roused as when Miss Pole had assumed it to be the most desirable

arrangement. As long as Martha would remain with Miss Matty, Miss Matty was only too thankful to have

her about her; yes, and Jem too, who was a very pleasant man to have in the house, for she never saw him

from week's end to week's end. And as for the probable children, if they would all turn out such little darlings

as her goddaughter, Matilda, she should not mind the number, if Martha didn't. Besides, the next was to be

called Deborah a point which Miss Matty had reluctantly yielded to Martha's stubborn determination that

her firstborn was to be Matilda. So Miss Pole had to lower her colours, and even her voice, as she said to me

that, as Mr and Mrs Hearn were still to go on living in the same house with Miss Matty, we had certainly

I left Miss Matty and Mr Peter most comfortable and contented; the only subject for regret to the tender heart

of the one, and the social friendly nature of the other, being the unfortunate quarrel between Mrs Jamieson

and the plebeian Hogginses and their following. In joke, I prophesied one day that this would only last until

Mrs Jamieson or Mr Mulliner were ill, in which case they would only be too glad to be friends with Mr

Hoggins; but Miss Matty did not like my looking forward to anything like illness in so light a manner, and

I received two Cranford letters on one auspicious October morning. Both Miss Pole and Miss Matty wrote to

ask me to come over and meet the Gordons, who had returned to England alive and well with their two

children, now almost grown up. Dear Jessie Brown had kept her old kind nature, although she had changed

her name and station; and she wrote to say that she and Major Gordon expected to be in Cranford on the

fourteenth, and she hoped and begged to be remembered to Mrs Jamieson (named first, as became her

honourable station), Miss Pole and Miss Matty could she ever forget their kindness to her poor father and

sister? Mrs Forrester, Mr Hoggins (and here again came in an allusion to kindness shown to the dead long

ago), his new wife, who as such must allow Mrs Gordon to desire to make her acquaintance, and who was,

moreover, an old Scotch friend of her husband's. In short, every one was named, from the rector who had

been appointed to Cranford in the interim between Captain Brown's death and Miss Jessie's marriage, and

was now associated with the latter event down to Miss Betty Barker. All were asked to the luncheon; all

except Mrs FitzAdam, who had come to live in Cranford since Miss Jessie Brown's days, and whom I found

rather moping on account of the omission. People wondered at Miss Betty Barker's being included in the

honourable list; but, then, as Miss Pole said, we must remember the disregard of the genteel proprieties of life

in which the poor captain had educated his girls, and for his sake we swallowed our pride. Indeed, Mrs

Jamieson rather took it as a compliment, as putting Miss Betty (formerly HER maid) on a level with "those

But when I arrived in Cranford, nothing was as yet ascertained of Mrs Jamieson's own intentions; would the

honourable lady go, or would she not? Mr Peter declared that she should and she would; Miss Pole shook her

head and desponded. But Mr Peter was a man of resources. In the first place, he persuaded Miss Matty to

write to Mrs Gordon, and to tell her of Mrs FitzAdam's existence, and to beg that one so kind, and cordial,

and generous, might be included in the pleasant invitation. An answer came back by return of post, with a

pretty little note for Mrs FitzAdam, and a request that Miss Matty would deliver it herself and explain the

previous omission. Mrs FitzAdam was as pleased as could be, and thanked Miss Matty over and over again.

Mr Peter had said, "Leave Mrs Jamieson to me;" so we did; especially as we knew nothing that we could do

I did not know, nor did Miss Matty, how things were going on, until Miss Pole asked me, just the day before

Mrs Gordon came, if I thought there was anything between Mr Peter and Mrs Jamieson in the matrimonial

line, for that Mrs Jamieson was really going to the lunch at the "George." She had sent Mr Mulliner down to

desire that there might be a footstool put to the warmest seat in the room, as she meant to come, and knew

that their chairs were very high. Miss Pole had picked this piece of news up, and from it she conjectured all

sorts of things, and bemoaned yet more. "If Peter should marry, what would become of poor dear Miss

Matty? And Mrs Jamieson, of all people!" Miss Pole seemed to think there were other ladies in Cranford who

would have done more credit to his choice, and I think she must have had someone who was unmarried in her

head, for she kept saying, "It was so wanting in delicacy in a widow to think of such a thing."

When I got back to Miss Matty's I really did begin to think that Mr Peter might be thinking of Mrs Jamieson

for a wife, and I was as unhappy as Miss Pole about it. He had the proof sheet of a great placard in his hand.

"Signor Brunoni, Magician to the King of Delhi, the Rajah of Oude, and the great Lama of Thibet," was

going to "perform in Cranford for one night only," the very next night; and Miss Matty, exultant, showed me

a letter from the Gordons, promising to remain over this gaiety, which Miss Matty said was entirely Peter's

doing. He had written to ask the signor to come, and was to be at all the expenses of the affair. Tickets were

to be sent gratis to as many as the room would hold. In short, Miss Matty was charmed with the plan, and

said that to morrow Cranford would remind her of the Preston Guild, to which she had been in her youth a

luncheon at the "George," with the dear Gordons, and the signor in the Assembly Room in the evening. But I

She, then, was chosen to preside over this entertainment of Mr Peter's; she was perhaps going to displace my

dear Miss Matty in his heart, and make her life lonely once more! I could not look forward to the morrow

with any pleasure; and every innocent anticipation of Miss Matty's only served to add to my annoyance.

So, angry and irritated, and exaggerating every little incident which could add to my irritation, I went on till

we were all assembled in the great parlour at the "George." Major and Mrs Gordon and pretty Flora and Mr

Ludovic were all as bright and handsome and friendly as could be; but I could hardly attend to them for

watching Mr Peter, and I saw that Miss Pole was equally busy. I had never seen Mrs Jamieson so roused and

animated before; her face looked full of interest in what Mr Peter was saying. I drew near to listen. My relief

was great when I caught that his words were not words of love, but that, for all his grave face, he was at his

old tricks. He was telling her of his travels in India, and describing the wonderful height of the Himalaya

mountains: one touch after another added to their size, and each exceeded the former in absurdity; but Mrs

Jamieson really enjoyed all in perfect good faith. I suppose she required strong stimulants to excite her to

come out of her apathy. Mr Peter wound up his account by saying that, of course, at that altitude there were

none of the animals to be found that existed in the lower regions; the game, everything was different. Firing

one day at some flying creature, he was very much dismayed when it fell, to find that he had shot a cherubim!

Mr Peter caught my eye at this moment, and gave me such a funny twinkle, that I felt sure he had no thoughts

"But, Mr Peter, shooting a cherubim don't you think I am afraid that was sacrilege!"

Mr Peter composed his countenance in a moment, and appeared shocked at the idea, which, as he said truly

enough, was now presented to him for the first time; but then Mrs Jamieson must remember that he had been

living for a long time among savages all of whom were heathens some of them, he was afraid, were

downright Dissenters. Then, seeing Miss Matty draw near, he hastily changed the conversation, and after a

little while, turning to me, he said, "Don't be shocked, prim little Mary, at all my wonderful stories. I consider

Mrs Jamieson fair game, and besides I am bent on propitiating her, and the first step towards it is keeping her

well awake. I bribed her here by asking her to let me have her name as patroness for my poor conjuror this

evening; and I don't want to give her time enough to get up her rancour against the Hogginses, who are just

coming in. I want everybody to be friends, for it harasses Matty so much to hear of these quarrels. I shall go

at it again byandby, so you need not look shocked. I intend to enter the Assembly Room tonight with Mrs

Jamieson on one side, and my lady, Mrs Hoggins, on the other. You see if I don't."

Somehow or another he did; and fairly got them into conversation together. Major and Mrs Gordon helped at

the good work with their perfect ignorance of any existing coolness between any of the inhabitants of

Ever since that day there has been the old friendly sociability in Cranford society; which I am thankful for,

because of my dear Miss Matty's love of peace and kindliness. We all love Miss Matty, and I somehow think