snubbed in the morning for want of comprehension to venture on too many inquiries now; and all passed over well with a hope on her part that no one would be hurried into marriage on her account.  When we came to the proposal that she should sell tea, I could see it was rather a shock to her; not on account of any personal loss of gentility involved, but only because she distrusted her own powers of action in a new line of life, and would timidly have preferred a little more privation to any exertion for which she feared she was unfitted.  However, when she saw my father was bent upon it, she sighed, and said she would try; and if she did not do well, of course she might give it up.  One good thing about it was, she did not think men ever bought tea; and it was of men particularly she was afraid.  They had such sharp loud ways with them; and did up accounts, and counted their change so quickly!  Now, if she might only sell comfits to children, she was sure she could please them!

CHAPTER XV—­A HAPPY RETURN

Before I left Miss Matty at Cranford everything had been comfortably arranged for her.  Even Mrs Jamieson’s approval of her selling tea had been gained.  That oracle had taken a few days to consider whether by so doing Miss Matty would forfeit her right to the privileges of society in Cranford.  I think she had some little idea of mortifying Lady Glenmire by the decision she gave at last; which was to this effect:  that whereas a married woman takes her husband’s rank by the strict laws of precedence, an unmarried woman retains the station her father occupied.  So Cranford was allowed to visit Miss Matty; and, whether allowed or not, it intended to visit Lady Glenmire.

But what was our surprise—­our dismay—­when we learnt that Mr and Mrs Hoggins were returning on the following Tuesday!  Mrs Hoggins!  Had she absolutely dropped her title, and so, in a spirit of bravado, cut the aristocracy to become a Hoggins!  She, who might have been called Lady Glenmire to her dying day!  Mrs Jamieson was pleased.  She said it only convinced her of what she had known from the first, that the creature had a low taste.  But “the creature” looked very happy on Sunday at church; nor did we see it necessary to keep our veils down on that side of our bonnets on which Mr and Mrs Hoggins sat, as Mrs Jamieson did; thereby missing all the smiling glory of his face, and all the becoming blushes of hers.  I am not sure if Martha and Jem looked more radiant in the afternoon, when they, too, made their first appearance.  Mrs Jamieson soothed the turbulence of her soul by having the blinds of her windows drawn down, as if for a funeral, on the day when Mr and Mrs Hoggins received callers; and it was with some difficulty that she was prevailed upon to continue the St James’s Chronicle, so indignant was she with its having inserted the announcement of the marriage.