He endeavoured to make peace with Miss Jenkyns soon after the
memorable dispute I have named, by a present of a wooden fire-
shovel (his own making), having heard her say how much the grating
of an iron one annoyed her. She received the present with cool
gratitude, and thanked him formally. When he was gone, she bade me
put it away in the lumber-room; feeling, probably, that no present
from a man who preferred Mr Boz to Dr Johnson could be less jarring
than an iron fire-shovel.
Such was the state of things when I left Cranford and went to
Drumble. I had, however, several correspondents, who kept me au
fait as to the proceedings of the dear little town. There was Miss
Pole, who was becoming as much absorbed in crochet as she had been
once in knitting, and the burden of whose letter was something
like, "But don't you forget the white worsted at Flint's" of the
old song; for at the end of every sentence of news came a fresh
direction as to some crochet commission which I was to execute for
her. Miss Matilda Jenkyns (who did not mind being called Miss
Matty, when Miss Jenkyns was not by) wrote nice, kind, rambling
letters, now and then venturing into an opinion of her own; but
suddenly pulling herself up, and either begging me not to name what
she had said, as Deborah thought differently, and SHE knew, or else
putting in a postscript to the effect that, since writing the
above, she had been talking over the subject with Deborah, and was
quite convinced that, etc.
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