taste by holding converse with an elegant and refined member of the
British aristocracy. But from some mundane failings who is
altogether free?"

Miss Pole and Miss Matty 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 Matty
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 Matty'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 Jenkyns had purchased a new carpet for the drawing-room.
Oh, the busy work Miss Matty and I had in chasing the sunbeams, as
they fell in an afternoon right down on 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