called her (remembering the clause in her
will, and the dignity of the occasion) Miss
Matilda Jenkyns—might choose to do with
the receipt when it came into her possession—
whether to make it public, or to hand it
down as an heir-loom—she did not know, nor
would she dictate. And a mould of this
admirable, digestible, unique bread-jelly was
sent by Mrs. Forrester to our poor sick
conjurer. Who says that the aristocracy are
proud? Here was a lady, by birth a Tyrrell,
and descended from the great Sir Walter
that shot King Rufus, and in whose veins
ran the blood of him who murdered the little
Princes in the Tower, going every day to see
what dainty dishes she could prepare for
Samuel Brown, a mountebank! But, indeed,
it was wonderful to see what kind feelings
were called out by this poor man's coming
amongst us. And also wonderful to see how
the great Cranford panic, which had been
occasioned by his first corning in his Turkish
dress, melted away into thin air on his second
coming—pale and feeble, and with his heavy
filmy eyes that only brightened a very little
when they fell upon the countenance of his
faithful wife, or their pale and sorrowful little
girl.

Somehow, we all forgot to be afraid. I
dare say it was, that finding out that he, who
had first excited our love of the marvellous
by his unprecedented arts, had not sufficient
every-day gifts to manage a shying horse,
made us feel as if we were ourselves again.
Miss Pole came with her little basket at all
hours of the evening, as if her lonely house,
and the unfrequented road to it, had never
been infested by that "murderous gang;"
Mrs. Forrester said, she thought that neither
Jenny nor she need mind the headless lady
who wept and wailed in Darkness Lane, for
surely the power was never given to such
beings to harm those who went about to try
and do what little good was in their power;
to which Jenny tremblingly assented; but
her mistress's theory had little effect on the
maid's practice, until she had sewed two
pieces of red flannel, in the shape of a cross,
on her inner garment.

I found Miss Matey covering her penny
ball—the ball that she used to roll under her
bed—with gay-coloured worsted in rainbow
stripes.

"My dear," said she, "my heart is sad
for that little care-worn child. Although
her father is a conjurer, she looks as if she
had never had a good game of play in her
life. I used to make very pretty balls in this
way when I was a girl, and I thought I
would try if I could not make this one smart
and take it to Phœbe this afternoon. I think
'the gang' must have left the neighbourhood,
for one does not hear any more of their
violence and robbery now."

We were all of us far too full of the Signor's
precarious state to talk about either robbers
or ghosts. Indeed, Lady Glenmire said, she
never had heard of any actual robberies;
except that two little boys had stolen some
apples from Farmer Benson's orchard, and
that some eggs had been missed on a market-
day off Widow Hayward's stall. But that
was expecting too much of us; we could
not acknowledge that we had only had this
small foundation for all our panic. Miss Pole
drew herself up at this remark of Lady
Glenmire's; and said "that she wished she could
agree with her as to the very small reason we
had had for alarm; but, with the recollection
of the man disguised as a woman, who had
endeavoured to force himself into her house,
while his confederates waited outside; with
the knowledge, gained from Lady Glenmire
herself, of the foot-prints seen on Mrs. Jamieson's
flower-borders; with the fact before
her of the audacious robbery committed on
Mr. Hoggins at his own door—"But here
Lady Glenmire broke in with a very strong
expression of doubt as to whether this last
story was not an entire fabrication, founded
upon the theft of a cat; she grew so red
while she was saying all this, that I was not
surprised at Miss Pole's manner of bridling
up, and I am certain, if Lady Glenmire had
not been "her ladyship," we should have had
a more emphatic contradiction than the
"Well, to be sure!" and similar fragmentary
ejaculations, which were all that she ventured
upon in my lady's presence. But when she
was gone, Miss Pole began a long congratulation
to Miss Matey that, so far, they
had escaped marriage, which she noticed
always made people credulous to the last
degree; indeed, she thought it argued great
natural credulity in a woman if she could
not keep herself from being married; and
in what Lady Glenmire had said about
Mr. Hoggins's robbery, we had a specimen of
what people came to, if they gave way to
such a weakness; evidently, Lady Glenmire
would swallow anything, if she could believe
the poor vamped-up story about a neck
of mutton and a pussy, with which he had
tried to impose on Miss Pole, only she had
always been on her guard against believing
too much of what men said.

We were thankful, as Miss Pole desired
us to be, that we had never been married;
but I think, of the two, we were even more
thankful that the robbers had left Cranford;
at least I judge so from a speech of Miss
Matey's that evening, as we sat over the
fire, in which she evidently looked upon a
husband as a great protector against thieves,
burglars, and ghosts; and said that she did
not think that she should dare to be always
warning young people of matrimony, as Miss
Pole did continually; to be sure, marriage
was a risk, as she saw now she had had some
experience; but she remembered the time
when she had looked forward to being
married as much as any one.

"Not to any particular person, my dear,"
said she, hastily checking herself up as if she