"Nay, now, I don't know anything more than that he offered and was
refused. Miss Matty might not like him--and Miss Jenkyns might
never have said a word--it is only a guess of mine."
"Has she never seen him since?" I inquired.
"No, I think not. You see Woodley, Cousin Thomas's house, lies
half-way between Cranford and Misselton; and I know he made
Misselton his market-town very soon after he had offered to Miss
Matty; and I don't think he has been into Cranford above once or
twice since--once, when I was walking with Miss Matty, in High
Street, and suddenly she darted from me, and went up Shire Lane. A
few minutes after I was startled by meeting Cousin Thomas."
"How old is he?" I asked, after a pause of castle-building.
"He must be about seventy, I think, my dear," said Miss Pole,
blowing up my castle, as if by gun-powder, into small fragments.
Very soon after--at least during my long visit to Miss Matilda--I
had the opportunity of seeing Mr Holbrook; seeing, too, his first
encounter with his former love, after thirty or forty years'
separation. I was helping to decide whether any of the new
assortment of coloured silks which they had just received at the
shop would do to match a grey and black mousseline-delaine that
wanted a new breadth, when a tall, thin, Don Quixote-looking old
man came into the shop for some woollen gloves.
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