Cranford

parties. We had often rejoiced, in former days, that there was no
gentleman to be attended to, and to find conversation for, at the
card-parties. We had congratulated ourselves upon the snugness of the
evenings; and, in our love for gentility and distaste of mankind, we had
almost persuaded ourselves that to be a man was to be ‘vulgar’; so that
when I found my friend and hostess, Miss Jenkyns, was going to have a
party in my honour, and that Captain and the Miss Browns were invited, I
wondered much what would be the course of the evening. Card-tables, with
green-baize tops, were set out by daylight, just as usual; it was the
third week in November, so the evenings closed in about four. Candles
and clean packs of cards were arranged on each table. The fire was made
up; the neat maidservant had received her last directions; and there we
stood, dressed in our best, each with a candle-lighter in our hands,
ready to dart at the candles as soon as the first knock came. Parties in
Cranford were solemn festivities, making the ladies feel gravely elated
as they sat together in their best dresses. As soon as three had
arrived, we sat down to ‘Preference,’ I being the unlucky fourth. The