Miss Pole grew quite impatient for some indisposition or
accident to befall Mrs Jamieson or her dependents, in order that
Cranford might see how she would act under the perplexing
circumstances.
Martha was beginning to go about again, and I had already fixed a
limit, not very far distant, to my visit, when one afternoon, as I
was sitting in the shop-parlour with Miss Matty--I remember the
weather was colder now than it had been in May, three weeks before,
and we had a fire and kept the door fully closed--we saw a
gentleman go slowly past the window, and then stand opposite to the
door, as if looking out for the name which we had so carefully
hidden. He took out a double eyeglass and peered about for some
time before he could discover it. Then he came in. And, all on a
sudden, it flashed across me that it was the Aga himself! For his
clothes had an out-of-the-way foreign cut about them, and his face
was deep brown, as if tanned and re-tanned by the sun. His
complexion contrasted oddly with his plentiful snow-white hair, his
eyes were dark and piercing, and he had an odd way of contracting
them and puckering up his cheeks into innumerable wrinkles when he
looked earnestly at objects. He did so to Miss Matty when he first
came in. His glance had first caught and lingered a little upon
me, but then turned, with the peculiar searching look I have
described, to Miss Matty.
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