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1. Something of the same kind perplexed Miss Matty at teatime, when she was installed in the great easy-chair opposite to Mr. Jenkyns's in order to gaze her fill. She could hardly drink for looking at him, and as for eating, that was out of the question.

2. On coming out of church the brisk Captain paid the most gallant attention to his two daughters. He nodded and smiled to his acquaintances; but he shook hands with none until he had helped Miss Brown to unfurl her umbrella, had relieved her of her prayer book, and had waited patiently till she, with trembling, nervous hands, had taken up her gown to walk through the wet roads.

3. There was all the more time for me to hear old-world stories from Miss Pole, while she sat knitting and I making my father's shirts.

4. "God bless my soul, madam! but I nearly forgot half my errand."

5. And for a long time, at Miss Matty's, I know, we used to make a regular expedition all round the kitchens and cellars every night, Miss Matty leading the way armed with the poker, I following with the hearth-brush, and Martha carrying the shovel and fire-irons with which to sound the alarm.

6. Miss Matty sent the sedan-chair for him, and Martha and I aired it well before it left Cranford, by holding a warming-pan full of red-hot coals in it, and then shutting it up close, smoke and all, until the time when he should get into it at the "Rising Sun."

7. But the quiet continuous sound told of content, and gave me a pleasant feeling, as I stood in the street, just outside.

8. Instead of the fifth comfit she always told them to hold out their tiny palms, into which she shook either peppermint or ginger lozenges, as a preventive to the dangers that might arise from the previous sale.

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