But it might be the spring
weather, for it was a warm and pleasant March; and merinoes and
beavers, and woollen materials of all sorts were but ungracious
receptacles of the bright sun's glancing rays. It had not been
Lady Glenmire's dress that had won Mr Hoggins's heart, for she went
about on her errands of kindness more shabby than ever. Although
in the hurried glimpses I caught of her at church or elsewhere she
appeared rather to shun meeting any of her friends, her face seemed
to have almost something of the flush of youth in it; her lips
looked redder and more trembling full than in their old compressed
state, and her eyes dwelt on all things with a lingering light, as
if she was learning to love Cranford and its belongings. Mr
Hoggins looked broad and radiant, and creaked up the middle aisle
at church in a brand-new pair of top-boots--an audible, as well as
visible, sign of his purposed change of state; for the tradition
went, that the boots he had worn till now were the identical pair
in which he first set out on his rounds in Cranford twenty-five
years ago; only they had been new-pieced, high and low, top and
bottom, heel and sole, black leather and brown leather, more times
than any one could tell.
None of the ladies in Cranford chose to sanction the marriage by
congratulating either of the parties.
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