Cranford

daughter’s illness made the place a hard one.

[Illustration: ‘No one could black his boots except himself.’]

He endeavoured to make peace with Miss Jenkyns, soon after the memorable
dispute I have named, by a present of a wooden fire-shovel (his own
making), having heard her say how much the grating of an iron one
annoyed her. She received the present with cool gratitude, and thanked
him formally. When he was gone, she bade me put it away in the
lumber-room; feeling, probably, that no present from a man who preferred
Mr. Boz to Dr. Johnson could be less jarring than an iron fire-shovel.

[Illustration: ‘Miss Jenkyns.’]

Such was the state of things when I left Cranford and went to Drumble. I
had, however, several correspondents who kept me au fait as to the
proceedings of the dear little town. There was Miss Pole, who was
becoming as much absorbed in crochet as she had been once in knitting,
and the burden of whose letter was something like, ‘But don’t you forget
the white worsted at Flint’s’ of the old song; for at the end of every
sentence of news came a fresh direction as to some crochet commission
which I was to execute for her. Miss Matilda Jenkyns (who did not mind