 Mrs. Jamieson is
much more phlegmatic than most people, and does not enter into the little
delicacies of feeling which you possess in so remarkable a degree.«
    »I thought you possessed them, too, that day Mrs. Jamieson called to tell us
not to go,« said Miss Matty innocently.
    But Miss Pole, in addition to her delicacies of feeling, possessed a very
smart cap, which she was anxious to show to an admiring world; and so she seemed
to forget all her angry words uttered not a fortnight before, and to be ready to
act on what she called the great Christian principle of Forgive and forget; and
she lectured dear Miss Matty so long on this head that she absolutely ended by
assuring her it was her duty, as a deceased rector's daughter, to buy a new cap
and go to the party at Mrs. Jamieson's. So »we were most happy to accept,«
instead of »regretting that we were obliged to decline.«
    The expenditure on dress in Cranford was principally in that one article
referred to. If the heads were buried in smart new caps, the ladies were like
ostriches, and cared not what became of their bodies. Old gowns, white and
venerable collars, any number of brooches, up and down and everywhere (some with
dogs' eyes painted in them; some that were like small picture-frames with
mausoleums and weeping-willows neatly executed in hair inside; some, again, with
miniatures of ladies and gentlemen sweetly smiling out of a nest of stiff
muslin), old brooches for a permanent ornament, and new caps to suit the fashion
of the day - the ladies of Cranford always dressed with chaste elegance and
propriety, as Miss Barker once prettily expressed it.
    And with three new caps, and a greater array of brooches than had ever been
seen together at one time since Cranford was a town, did Mrs. Forrester,.and
Miss Matty, and Miss Pole appear on that memorable Tuesday evening. I counted
seven brooches myself on Miss Pole's dress. Two were fixed negligently in her
cap (one was a butterfly made of Scotch pebbles, which a vivid imagination might
believe to be the real insect); one fastened her net neck-kerchief; one her
collar; one ornamented the front of her gown, midway between her throat and
waist; and another adorned the point of her stomacher. Where the seventh was I
have forgotten, but it was somewhere about her, I am sure.
    But I am getting on too fast, in describing the dresses of the company.
