She dressed
finer than any lady in Cranford; and we did not wonder at it; for
it was understood that she was wearing out all the bonnets and caps
and outrageous ribbons which had once formed her stock-in-trade.
It was five or six years since she had given up shop, so in any
other place than Cranford her dress might have been considered
passee.
And now Miss Betty Barker had called to invite Miss Matty to tea at
her house on the following Tuesday. She gave me also an impromptu
invitation, as I happened to be a visitor--though I could see she
had a little fear lest, since my father had gone to live in
Drumble, he might have engaged in that "horrid cotton trade," and
so dragged his family down out of "aristocratic society." She
prefaced this invitation with so many apologies that she quite
excited my curiosity. "Her presumption" was to be excused. What
had she been doing? She seemed so over-powered by it I could only
think that she had been writing to Queen Adelaide to ask for a
receipt for washing lace; but the act which she so characterised
was only an invitation she had carried to her sister's former
mistress, Mrs Jamieson. "Her former occupation considered, could
Miss Matty excuse the liberty?" Ah! thought I, she has found out
that double cap, and is going to rectify Miss Matty's head-dress.
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