mind being called Miss Matey, 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,
&c.;—(here, probably, followed a recantation
of every opinion she had given in the
letter.) Then came Miss Jenkyns—Deborah,
as she liked Miss Matey 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 jockey-cap, and altogether had the
appearance of a strong-minded woman;
therefore 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 loved her!) and I will give
an extract, more especially because it relates
to our friend Captain Brown:—

"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 feelings who is free?"

Miss Pole and Miss Matey 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 letter-writers: they made the most
of it. Miss Matey 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 Matey'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 could not
hear of any one with whom his lordship had
held conversation.

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 well-preserved, old-
fashioned clothes. The greatest event was,
that Miss Jenkynses had purchased a new
carpet for the drawing-room. O, the busy
work Miss Matey and I had in chasing the
sunbeams, as they fell in an afternoon right
down  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 upon in London?

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. Hood; would walk through the
street 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