nature of her head-dress.

Miss Barkers, who confined themselves to truth, and did not approve
of miscellaneous customers, throve notwithstanding. They were
self-denying, good people. Many a time have I seen the eldest of
them (she that had been maid to Mrs Jamieson) carrying out some
delicate mess to a poor person. They only aped their betters in
having "nothing to do" with the class immediately below theirs.
And when Miss Barker died, their profits and income were found to
be such that Miss Betty was justified in shutting up shop and
retiring from business. She also (as I think I have before said)
set up her cow; a mark of respectability in Cranford almost as
decided as setting up a gig is among some people. She dressed
finer than any lady in Cranford; and we did not wonder at it; for
it was understood that she was wearing out all the bonnets and caps
and outrageous ribbons which had once formed her stock-in-trade.
It was five or six years since she had given up shop, so in any
other place than Cranford her dress might have been considered
passee.

And now Miss Betty Barker had called to invite Miss Matty to tea at
her house on the following Tuesday. She gave me also an impromptu
invitation, as I happened to be a visitor--though I could see she
had a little fear lest, since my father had gone to live in
Drumble, he might have engaged in that "horrid cotton trade," and
so dragged his family down out of "aristocratic society." She
prefaced this invitation with so many apologies that she quite
excited my curiosity. "Her presumption" was to be excused. What
had she been doing? She seemed so over-powered by it I could only
think that she had been writing to Queen Adelaide to ask for a