Cranford | Page 4

dimples, and not always to be trying to look
like a child." It was true there was something childlike in her face; and
there will be, I think, till she dies, though she should live to a hundred.
Her eyes were large blue wondering eyes, looking straight at you; her
nose was unformed and snub, and her lips were red and dewy; she wore
her hair, too, in little rows of curls, which heightened this appearance. I
do not know whether she was pretty or not; but I liked her face, and so
did everybody, and I do not think she could help her dimples. She had
something of her father's jauntiness of gait and manner; and any female
observer might detect a slight difference in the attire of the two sisters--
that of Miss Jessie being about two pounds per annum more expensive
than Miss Brown's. Two pounds was a large sum in Captain Brown's
annual disbursements.
Such was the impression made upon me by the Brown family when I
first saw them all together in Cranford Church. The Captain I had met
before--on the occasion of the smoky chimney, which he had cured by
some simple alteration 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 quivered 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 wonder 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 would 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 evenings closed in about four. Candles,
and clean packs of cards, were arranged on 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 store-room as I
passed in the morning, were placed each on the middle of a card-table.
The china was delicate egg-shell; 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 Captain was a favourite with all
the ladies present. Ruffled brows were smoothed, sharp voices lowered
at his approach. Miss Brown looked ill, and depressed almost to gloom.
Miss Jessie smiled as usual, and seemed nearly as popular as her father.
He immediately and quietly assumed the man's place in the room;

attended to every one's wants, lessened the pretty maid-servant's labour
by waiting on empty cups and bread-and-butterless ladies; and yet did
it all in so easy and dignified a manner, and so much as if it were a
matter of course for the strong to attend to the weak, that he was a true
man throughout. He played for threepenny points with as grave an
interest as if they had been pounds; and yet, in all his attention to
strangers, he had an eye on his suffering daughter-- for suffering I was
sure she was, though to many eyes she might only appear to be irritable.
Miss Jessie could not play cards: but