Then we brought ourselves
down to earth and the present time by questioning each other (being
all equally ignorant, and all equally without the slightest data to
build any conclusions upon) as to when IT would take place? Where?
How much a year Mr Hoggins had? Whether she would drop her title?
And how Martha and the other correct servants in Cranford would
ever be brought to announce a married couple as Lady Glenmire and
Mr Hoggins? But would they be visited? Would Mrs Jamieson let us?
Or must we choose between the Honourable Mrs Jamieson and the
degraded Lady Glenmire? We all liked Lady Glenmire the best. She
was bright, and kind, and sociable, and agreeable; and Mrs Jamieson
was dull, and inert, and pompous, and tiresome. But we had
acknowledged the sway of the latter so long, that it seemed like a
kind of disloyalty now even to meditate disobedience to the
prohibition we anticipated.
Mrs Forrester surprised us in our darned caps and patched collars;
and we forgot all about them in our eagerness to see how she would
bear the information, which we honourably left to Miss Pole, to
impart, although, if we had been inclined to take unfair advantage,
we might have rushed in ourselves, for she had a most out-of-place
fit of coughing for five minutes after Mrs Forrester entered the
room.
Pages:
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209