Fitz-
Adam!--it was a pretty name, and she thought it very probably meant
'Child of Adam.' No one, who had not some good blood in their
veins, would dare to be called Fitz; there was a deal in a name--
she had had a cousin who spelt his name with two little ffs--
ffoulkes--and he always looked down upon capital letters and said
they belonged to lately-invented families. She had been afraid he
would die a bachelor, he was so very choice. When he met with a
Mrs ffarringdon, at a watering-place, he took to her immediately;
and a very pretty genteel woman she was--a widow, with a very good
fortune; and 'my cousin,' Mr ffoulkes, married her; and it was all
owing to her two little ffs."
Mrs Fitz-Adam did not stand a chance of meeting with a Mr Fitz-
anything in Cranford, so that could not have been her motive for
settling there. Miss Matty thought it might have been the hope of
being admitted into the society of the place, which would certainly
be a very agreeable rise for ci-devant Miss Hoggins; and if this
had been her hope it would be cruel to disappoint her.
So everybody called upon Mrs Fitz-Adam--everybody but Mrs Jamieson,
who used to show how honourable she was by never seeing Mrs Fitz-
Adam when they met at the Cranford parties. There would be only
eight or ten ladies in the room, and Mrs Fitz-Adam was the largest
of all, and she invariably used to stand up when Mrs Jamieson came
in, and curtsey very low to her whenever she turned in her
direction--so low, in fact, that I think Mrs Jamieson must have
looked at the wall above her, for she never moved a muscle of her
face, no more than if she had not seen her.
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