through a long, long illness, of which I had never heard before,
but which I now dated in my own mind as following the dismissal of
the suit of Mr Holbrook. So we talked softly and quietly of old
times through the long November evening.

The next day Miss Pole brought us word that Mr Holbrook was dead.
Miss Matty heard the news in silence; in fact, from the account of
the previous day, it was only what we had to expect. Miss Pole
kept calling upon us for some expression of regret, by asking if it
was not sad that he was gone, and saying -

"To think of that pleasant day last June, when he seemed so well!
And he might have lived this dozen years if he had not gone to that
wicked Paris, where they are always having revolutions."

She paused for some demonstration on our part. I saw Miss Matty
could not speak, she was trembling so nervously; so I said what I
really felt; and after a call of some duration--all the time of
which I have no doubt Miss Pole thought Miss Matty received the
news very calmly--our visitor took her leave.

Miss Matty made a strong effort to conceal her feelings--a
concealment she practised even with me, for she has never alluded
to Mr Holbrook again, although the book he gave her lies with her
Bible on the little table by her bedside. She did not think I
heard her when she asked the little milliner of Cranford to make
her caps something like the Honourable Mrs Jamieson's, or that I
noticed the reply -

"But she wears widows' caps, ma'am?"