chose that she should give a party, they reminded her of the
necessity for so doing: if not, she let it alone. 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. I always
took a quantity of plain sewing to Cranford; for, as we did not
read much, or walk much, I found it a capital time to get through
my work. One of Miss Pole's stories related to a shadow of a love
affair that was dimly perceived or suspected long years before.

Presently, the time arrived when I was to remove to Miss Matilda's
house. I found her timid and anxious about the arrangements for my
comfort. Many a time, while I was unpacking, did she come
backwards and forwards to stir the fire which burned all the worse
for being so frequently poked.

"Have you drawers enough, dear?" asked she. "I don't know exactly
how my sister used to arrange them. She had capital methods. I am
sure she would have trained a servant in a week to make a better
fire than this, and Fanny has been with me four months."

This subject of servants was a standing grievance, and I could not
wonder much at it; for if gentlemen were scarce, and almost unheard
of in the "genteel society" of Cranford, they or their
counterparts--handsome young men--abounded in the lower classes.
The pretty neat servant-maids had their choice of desirable
"followers"; and their mistresses, without having the sort of
mysterious dread of men and matrimony that Miss Matilda had, might
well feel a little anxious lest the heads of their comely maids
should be turned by the joiner, or the butcher, or the gardener,
who were obliged, by their callings, to come to the house, and who,