her, for I knew, from old experience, of the
horror with which both the Miss Jenkynses
looked upon "followers;" and in Miss Matey's
present nervous state this dread was not
likely to be lessened.

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

"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 to-
day 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 counting-
house, 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 man never
lived."

"Does Miss Matilda know of his illness?"
asked I;—a new light as to the cause of her
indisposition dawning upon me.—"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. How odd, she shouldn't have
told you!"

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 Matey believed, from all the
world. I ushered Miss Pole into Miss
Matilda's little drawing-room; and then left
them alone. But I was not surprised when
Martha came to my bed-room door, to ask
me to go down to dinner alone, for that
missus had one of her bad headaches. She
came into the drawing-room at tea-time; 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 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 dim parties far away in the
distance, when Miss Matey 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 Iord; and how she used to visit at Sir
Peter Arley's, and try to remodel the quiet
rectory establishment on the plans of Arley
Hall, where they kept thirty servants; and
how she had nursed Miss Matey 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 times, through the long
November evening.

The next day Miss Pole brought us word
that Mr. Holbrook was dead. Miss Matey
heard the news in silence; in fact, from the
account on 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 Matey 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 Matey received the
news very calmly—our visitor took her leave.
But the effort at self-control Miss Matey had
made 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 something like
the Honourable Mrs. Jamieson's, or that I
noticed the reply—

"But she wears widows' caps, ma'am?"

"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 ever since in Miss
Matey.

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 of her half-finished
sentence, dropped a courtesy, and said:—

"Yes, please, ma'am; two-and-twenty last
third of October, please, ma'am."

"And perhaps, Martha, you may sometime
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 was rather
startled when Martha made her ready eager
answer:—

"Please, ma'am, there's Jim Hearn, and
he's a joiner, making three-and-sixpence
a-day, and six foot one in his stocking-feet,
please ma'am; and if you'll ask about him
to-morrow morning, every one will give him
a character for steadiness; and he'll be glad