Writing she did
well and delicately--but spelling! She seemed to think that the
more out-of-the-way this was, and the more trouble it cost her, the
greater the compliment she paid to her correspondent; and words
that she would spell quite correctly in her letters to me became
perfect enigmas when she wrote to my father.
No! there was nothing she could teach to the rising generation of
Cranford, unless they had been quick learners and ready imitators
of her patience, her humility, her sweetness, her quiet contentment
with all that she could not do. I pondered and pondered until
dinner was announced by Martha, with a face all blubbered and
swollen with crying.
Miss Matty had a few little peculiarities which Martha was apt to
regard as whims below her attention, and appeared to consider as
childish fancies of which an old lady of fifty-eight should try and
cure herself. But to-day everything was attended to with the most
careful regard. The bread was cut to the imaginary pattern of
excellence that existed in Miss Matty's mind, as being the way
which her mother had preferred, the curtain was drawn so as to
exclude the dead brick wall of a neighbour's stable, and yet left
so as to show every tender leaf of the poplar which was bursting
into spring beauty.
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