on in the flue. In church, he held his double eye-glass
to his eyes during the Morning Hymn, and then lifted up his head erect
and sang out loud and joyfully. He made the responses louder than the
clerk--an old man with a piping, feeble voice, who, I think, felt
aggrieved at the captain's sonorous bass, and quavered higher and higher
in consequence.

On coming out of church the brisk captain paid the most gallant
attention to his two daughters. He nodded and smiled to his
acquaintances; but he shook hands with none until he had helped Miss
Brown to unfurl her umbrella, had relieved her of her prayer-book, and
had waited patiently till she, with trembling, nervous hands, had taken
up her gown to walk through the wet roads.

I wondered what the Cranford ladies did with Captain Brown at their
parties. We had often rejoiced, in former days, that there was no
gentleman to be attended to, and to find conversation for, at the
card-parties. We had congratulated ourselves upon the snugness of the
evenings; and, in our love for gentility, and distaste of mankind, we
had almost persuaded ourselves that to be a man was to be "vulgar"; so
that when I found my friend and hostess, Miss Jenkyns, was going to have
a party in my honour, and that Captain and the Miss Browns were invited,
I wondered much what could be the course of the evening. Card-tables,
with green-baize tops were set out by daylight, just as usual; it was
the third week in November, so the evening closed in about four.
Candles, and clean packs of cards were arranged in each table. The fire
was made up; the neat maid-servant had received her last directions; and
there we stood, dressed in our best, each with a candle-lighter in our
hands, ready to dart at the candles as soon as the first knock came.
Parties in Cranford were solemn festivities, making the ladies feel
gravely elated as they sat together in their best dresses. As soon as
three had arrived, we sat down to "Preference," I being the unlucky
fourth. The next four comers were put down immediately to another table;
and presently the tea-trays, which I had seen set out in the storeroom
as I passed in the morning, were placed each on the middle of a
card-table. The china was delicate eggshell; the old-fashioned silver
glittered with polishing; but the eatables were of the slightest
description. While the trays were yet on the tables, Captain and the
Miss Browns came in; and I could see that, somehow or other, the