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 dining-
parlour, 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
everything 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 plain-spoken to a
fault; otherwise she was a brisk, well-meaning,
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 bed-room at
liberty; but I am sure she wished the Major
had stopped in India and forgotten his cousins
out and out.

"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 dressing-
room? Dear! dear! and I've got none.
Deborah would have had them. And slippers,
and coat-brushes?" 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 continually
cut in with some fresh direction, muddling the
poor girl's mind, as she stood open-mouthed,
listening to us both.

"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 vegetables round
to people, and let them help themselves."

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

"I'll do it as you tell me, ma'am," said
Martha; "but I like lads best."

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 body-
servant 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
dressing-room—answers which I must
confess she had given in the wearied manner
of the Scandinavian prophetess,—

               "Leave me, leave me to repose!"

And now I come to the love affair.

It seems that Miss Pole had a cousin, once
or twice removed, who had offered to Miss
Matey 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