nowt but dumb flowers," said cook, touched by
this allusion to the cheerfulness of the street, as
contrasted with the view from her own kitchen
window.

"It's a very good look-out for busy people,"
said Miss Pole, severely. And then, feeling she
was likely to get the worst of it in an encounter
with her old servant, she withdrew with meek
dignity, being deaf to some sharp reply; and of
course I, being bound to keep order, was deaf
too. If the truth must be told, we rather
hastened our steps, until we had banged the
street-door behind us.

We called on Miss Matty, of course; and
then on Mrs. Hoggins. It seemed as if ill-luck
would have it that we went to the only two
households of Cranford where there was the
encumbrance of a man, and in both places the man
was where he ought not to have been— namely,
in his own house, and in the way. Miss Pole
— out of civility to me, and because she really
was full of the new cage for Polly, and because
we all in Cranford relied on the sympathy of our
neighbours in the veriest trifle that interested
us— told Miss Matty, and Mr. Peter, and Mr.
and Mrs. Hoggins; he was standing in the
drawing-room, booted and spurred, and eating
his hunk of bread-and-cheese in the very presence
of his aristocratic wife, my lady that was.
As Miss Pole said afterwards, if refinement was
not to be found in Cranford, blessed as it was with
so many scions of county families, she did not
know where to meet with it. Bread-and-cheese
in a drawing-room! Onions next.

But for all Mr. Hoggins's vulgarity, Miss Pole
told him of the present she was about to receive.

"Only think! a new cage for Polly— Polly—
Polly-Cockatoo, you know, Mr. Hoggins. You
remember him, and the bite he gave me once
because he wanted to be put back in his cage,
pretty bird?"

"I only hope the new cage will be strong as
well as pretty, for I must say a—" He caught
a look from his wife, I think, for he stopped short.

"Well, we're old friends, Polly and I, and he put
some practice in my way once. I shall be up the
street this afternoon, and perhaps I shall step in
and see this smart Parisian cage."

"Do!" said Miss Pole, eagerly. "Or, if
you are in a hurry, look up at my drawing-room
window; if the cage is come, it will be hanging
out there, and Polly in it."

We had passed the omnibus that met the
train from London some time ago, so we were
not surprised as we returned home to see Fanny
half out of the window, and cook evidently
either helping or hindering her. Then they
both took their heads in; but there was no cage
hanging up. We hastened up the steps.

Both Fanny and the cook met us in the
passage.

"Please, ma'am," said Fanny, "there's no
bottom to the cage, and Polly would fly away."

"And there's no top," exclaimed cook. "He
might get out at the top quite easy."

"Let me see," said Miss Pole, brushing past,
thinking no doubt that her superior intelligence
was all that was needed to set things to rights.
On the ground lay a bundle, or a circle of hoops,
neatly covered over with calico, no more like a
cage for Polly-Cockatoo than I am like a cage.
Cook took something up between her finger and
thumb, and lifted the unsightly present from
Paris. How I wish it had stayed there!— but
foolish ambition has brought people to ruin
before now; and my twenty shillings are gone,
sure enough, and there must be some use or
some ornament intended by the maker of the
thing before us.

"Don't you think it's a mousetrap, ma'am?"
asked Fanny, dropping her little curtsey.

For reply, the cook lifted up the machine, and
showed how easily mice might run out; and
Fanny shrank back abashed. Cook was evidently
set against the new invention, and muttered
about its being all of a piece with French
things— French cooks, French plums (nasty
dried-up things), French rolls (as had no substance
in 'em).

Miss Pole's good manners, and desire of
making the best of things in my presence, induced
her to try and drown cook's mutterings.

"Indeed, I think it will make a very nice
cage for Polly-Cockatoo. How pleased he will
be to go from one hoop to another, just like a
ladder, and with a board or two at the bottom,
and nicely tied up at the top— "

Fanny was struck with a new idea.

"Please, ma'am, my sister-in-law has got an
aunt as lives lady's-maid with Sir John's daughter
— Miss Arley. And they did say as she wore
iron petticoats all made of hoops—"

"Nonsense, Fanny!" we all cried; for such a
thing had not been heard of in all Drumble, let
alone Cranford, and I was rather looked upon in
the light of a fast young woman by all the
laundresses of Cranford, because I had two
corded petticoats.

"Go mind thy business, wench," said cook,
with the utmost contempt; "I'll warrant we'll
manage th' cage without thy help."

"It is near dinner-time, Fanny, and the cloth
not laid," said Miss Pole, hoping the remark
might cut two ways; but cook had no notion
of going. She stood on the bottom step of the
stairs, holding the Paris perplexity aloft in the air.

"It might do for a meat-safe," said she.
"Cover it o'er wi' canvas, to keep th' flies out.
It is a good framework, I reckon, anyhow!"
She held her head on one side, like a connoisseur
in meat-safes, as she was.

Miss Pole said, "Are you sure Mrs. Gordon
called it a cage, Mary? Because she is a
woman of her word, and would not have called
it so if it was not."

"Look here; I have the letter in my
pocket."

"'I have wondered how I could best fulfil
your commission for me to purchase something
to the value of'— um, um, never mind—'
fashionable and pretty for dear Miss Pole, and at
length I have decided upon one of the new
kind of "cages"' (look here, Miss Pole; here
is the word, C. A. G. E.), 'which are made so