have sent to inquire how you are after your journey
to-night, my dear" (fifteen miles, in a gentleman's carriage); "they
will give you some rest to-morrow, but the next day, I have no doubt,
they will call; so be at liberty after twelve--from twelve to three are
our calling-hours."

Then, after they had called:

"It is the third day; I dare say your mamma has told you, my dear, never
to let more than three days elapse between receiving a call and
returning it; and also, that you are never to stay longer than a quarter
of an hour."

"But am I to look at my watch? How am I to find out when a quarter of an
hour has passed?"

"You must keep thinking about the time, my dear, and not allow yourself
to forget it in conversation."

As everybody had this rule in their minds, whether they received or
paid a call, of course no absorbing subject was ever spoken about. We
kept ourselves to short sentences of small talk, and were punctual to
our time.

I imagine that a few of the gentlefolk of Cranford were poor, and had
some difficulty in making both ends meet; but they were like the
Spartans, and concealed their smart under a smiling face. We none of us
spoke of money, because that subject savoured of commerce and trade, and
though some might be poor, we were all aristocratic. The Cranfordians
had that kindly _esprit de corps_ which made them overlook all
deficiencies in success when some among them tried to conceal their
poverty. When Mrs. Forester, for instance, gave a party in her
baby-house of a dwelling, and the little maiden disturbed the ladies on
the sofa by a request that she might get the tea-tray out from
underneath, every one took this novel proceeding as the most natural
thing in the world, and talked on about household forms and ceremonies
as if we all believed that our hostess had a regular servants' hall,
second table, with housekeeper and steward, instead of the once little
charity-school maiden, whose short ruddy arms could never have been
strong enough to carry the tray upstairs if she had not been assisted in
private by her mistress, who now sat in state pretending not to know
what cakes were sent up, though she knew, and we knew, and she knew that
we knew, and we knew that she knew that we knew, she had been busy all
the morning making tea-bread and sponge-cakes.

There were one or two consequences arising from this general but
unacknowledged poverty, and this very much acknowledged gentility, which