But to return to Miss Matty.  It was really very pleasant to see how her unselfishness and simple sense of justice called out the same good qualities in others.  She never seemed to think any one would impose upon her, because she should be so grieved to do it to them.  I have heard her put a stop to the asseverations of the man who brought her coals by quietly saying, “I am sure you would be sorry to bring me wrong weight;” and if the coals were short measure that time, I don’t believe they ever were again.  People would have felt as much ashamed of presuming on her good faith as they would have done on that of a child.  But my father says “such simplicity might be very well in Cranford, but would never do in the world.”  And I fancy the world must be very bad, for with all my father’s suspicion of every one with whom he has dealings, and in spite of all his many precautions, he lost upwards of a thousand pounds by roguery only last year.

I just stayed long enough to establish Miss Matty in her new mode of life, and to pack up the library, which the rector had purchased.  He had written a very kind letter to Miss Matty, saying “how glad he should be to take a library, so well selected as he knew that the late Mr Jenkyns’s must have been, at any valuation put upon them.”  And when she agreed to this, with a touch of sorrowful gladness that they would go back to the rectory and be arranged on the accustomed walls once more, he sent word that he feared that he had not room for them all, and perhaps Miss Matty would kindly allow him to leave some volumes on her shelves.  But Miss Matty said that she had her Bible and “Johnson’s Dictionary,” and should not have much time for reading, she was afraid; still, I retained a few books out of consideration for the rector’s kindness.

The money which he had paid, and that produced by the sale, was partly expended in the stock of tea, and part of it was invested against a rainy day—­i.e. old age or illness.  It was but a small sum, it is true; and it occasioned a few evasions of truth and white lies (all of which I think very wrong indeed—­in theory—­and would rather not put them in practice), for we knew Miss Matty would be perplexed as to her duty if she were aware of any little reserve—­fund being made for her while the debts of the bank remained unpaid.  Moreover, she had never been told of the way in which her friends were contributing to pay the rent.  I should have liked to tell her this, but the mystery of the affair gave a piquancy to their deed of kindness which the ladies were unwilling to give up; and at first Martha had to shirk many a perplexed question as to her ways and means of living in such a house, but by-and-by Miss Matty’s prudent uneasiness sank down into acquiescence with the existing arrangement.