however, was rather a disappointment to her
when, on my arrival, she followed me into
my bed-room, ostensibly to poke the fire, but
in reality, I do believe, to see if the sea-green
turban was not inside the cap-box with
which I had travelled. It was in vain that
I twirled the cap round on my hand to exhibit
back and side fronts; her heart had
been set upon a turban, and all she could do
was to say, with resignation in her look and
voice:

"I am sure you did your best, my dear'.
It is just like the caps all the ladies in Cranford
are wearing, and they have had theirs
for a year, I dare say. I should have liked
something newer, I confess—something more
like the turbans Miss Betty Barker tells me
Queen Adelaide wears; but it is very pretty,
my dear. And I dare say lavender will wear
better than sea-green. Well, after all, what
is dress that we should care about it!
You'll tell me if you want anything, my dear.
Here is the bell. I suppose turbans have not
got down to Drumble yet I"

So saying, the dear old lady gently bemoaned
herself out of the room, leaving me
to dress for the evening, when, as she informed
me, she expected Miss Pole and Mrs.
Forrester, and she hoped I should not feel
myself too much tired to join the party. Of
course I should not; and I made some haste
to unpack and arrange my dress; but, with
all my speed, I heard the arrivals and the
buzz of conversation in the next room before
I was ready. Just as I opened the door, I
caught the words—"I was foolish to expect
anything very genteel out of the Drumble
shops—poor girl! she did her best, I've no
doubt." But for all that, I had rather that
she blamed Drumble and me than disfigured
herself with a turban. Miss Pole was always
the person, in the trio of Cranford ladies
now assembled, to have had adventures.
She was in the habit of spending the morning
in rambling from shop to shop; not to
purchase anything (except an occasional reel
of cotton, or a piece of tape), but to see the
new articles and report upon them, and to
collect all the stray pieces of intelligence in
the town. She had a way, too, of demurely
popping hither and thither into all sorts of
places to gratify her curiosity on any point;
a way which, if she had not looked so very
genteel and prim, might have been considered
impertinent. And now, by the expressive
way in which she cleared her throat,
and waited for all minor subjects (such as
caps and turbans) to be cleared off the course,
we knew she had something very particular
to relate, when the due pause came—and I
defy any people, possessed of common modesty,
to keep up a conversation long, where one
among them sits up aloft in silence, looking
down upon all the things they chance to say
as trivial and contemptible compared to what
they could disclose, if properly entreated.
Miss Pole began:

"As I was stepping out of Gordon's shop,
to-day, I chanced to go into the George (my
Betty has a second-cousin who is chamber-maid
there, and I thought Betty would like
to hear how she was), and, not seeing any one
about, I strolled up the staircase, and found
myself in the passage leading to the Assembly
Room (you and I remember the Assembly
Room, I am sure, Miss Matey! and the
minuets de la cour!); so I went on, not thinking
of what I was about, when, all at once, I
perceived that I was in the middle of the
preparations for to-morrow night—room being
divided with great clothes-maids, over which
Crosby's men were tacking red flannel—very
dark and odd it seemed; it quite bewildered
me, and I was going on behind the screens,
in my absence of mind, when a gentleman
(quite the gentleman, I can assure you,)
stepped forwards and asked if I had any business
he could arrange for me. He spoke such
pretty broken English, I could not help
thinking of Thaddeus of Warsaw and the
Hungarian Brothers, and Santo Sebastiani;
and while I was busy picturing his past life to
myself, he had bowed me out of the room.
But wait a minute! You have not heard
half my story yet! I was going downstairs,
when who should I meet but Betty's second
cousin. So, of course, I stopped to speak to
her for Betty's sake; and she told me that I
had really seen the conjurer; the gentleman
who spoke broken English was Signor
Brunoni himself. Just at this moment he
passed us on the stairs, making such a graceful
bow, in reply to which I dropped a
curtsey—all foreigners have such polite
manners, one catches something of it. But
when he had gone downstairs, I bethought
me that I had dropped my glove in the
Assembly Room (it was safe in my muff all the
time, but I never found it till afterwards);
so I went back, and, just as I was creeping up
the passage left on one side of the great
screen that goes nearly across the room, who
should I see but the very same gentleman
that had met me before, and passed me on
the stairs, coming now forwards from the
inner part of the room, to which there is no
entrance—you remember, Miss Matey!—and
just repeating, in his pretty broken English,
the inquiry if I had any business there—I
don't mean that he put it quite so bluntly,
but he seemed very determined that I should
not pass the screen—so, of course, I explained
about my glove, which, curiously enough, I
found at that very moment."

Miss Pole then had seen the conjuror the
real live conjuror! and numerous were the
questions we all asked her: " Had he a beard?
Was he young or old? Fair or dark? Did
he look "—(unable to shape my question prudently,
I put it in another form)—" How did
he look? " In short, Miss Pole was the
heroine of the evening, owing to her morning's
encounter. If she was not the rose (that is
to say the conjuror), she had been near it.