out that double cap, and is going to rectify
Miss Matey's head-dress. No! it was simply
to extend her invitation to Miss Matey and
to me. Miss Matey bowed acceptance; and I
wondered that, in the graceful action, she did
not feel the unusual weight and extraordinary
height of her head-dress. 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 Matey.

"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 Matey,
who was thinking of her pool at Preference,
in which Carlo would not be available as a
partner.

"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, of course?"

"And Mrs. Forrester. I thought, in fact,
of going to her before I went to Miss Pole.
Although her circumstances are changed,
Madam, we can never forget her alliance to
the Bigges, of Bigelow Hall."

Miss Matey cared much more for the little
circumstance of her being a very good card-
player.

"Mrs. Fitz-Adam—I suppose"—

"No, Madam. I must draw a line
somewhere. Mrs. Jamieson would not, I think,
like to meet Mrs. Fitz-Adam. I have the
greatest respect for Mrs. Fitz-Adam—but I
cannot think her fit society for such ladies as
Mrs. Jamieson and Miss Matilda Jenkyns."

Miss Betty Barker bowed low to Miss
Matey, 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
ranks.

"May I beg you to come as near half-
past 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—half-past six." And
with a swimming curtsey Miss Betty Barker
took her leave.

My prophetic soul foretold a visit that
afternoon from Miss Pole, who usually came
to call on Miss Matilda after any event—or
indeed in sight of any event—to talk it over
with her.

"Miss Betty told me it was to be a choice
and select few," said Miss Pole, as she and
Miss Matey compared notes.

"Yes, so she said. Not even Mrs. Fitz-
Adam."

Now Mrs. Fitz-Adam 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. Fitz-
Adam, 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. Fitz-Adam
was. He died and was gathered to his fathers,
without our ever having thought about him
at all. And then Mrs. Fitz-Adam reappeared
in Cranford, '' as bold as a lion," Miss Pole
said, a well-to-do widow, dressed in rustling
black silk, so soon after her husband's death,
that poor Miss Jenkyns was justified in the
remark she made, that " bombazine would
have shown a deeper sense of her loss."

I remember the convocation of ladies, who
assembled to decide whether or not Mrs.
Fitz-Adam 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 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. Fitz-
Adam 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, by-and-bye we should
have no society at all."

Mrs. Forrester continued on the same side.

"She had always understood that Fitz
meant something aristocratic; there was
Fitz-Roy—she thought that some of the
Kings' children had been called Fitz-Roy:
and there was Fitz-Clarence now—they were