Scotland, he had offered and been refused, though with so much agitation and evident distress that he was sure she was not indifferent to him; and how he had discovered that the obstacle was the fell disease which was, even then, too surely threatening her sister.  She had mentioned that the surgeons foretold intense suffering; and there was no one but herself to nurse her poor Mary, or cheer and comfort her father during the time of illness.  They had had long discussions; and on her refusal to pledge herself to him as his wife when all should be over, he had grown angry, and broken off entirely, and gone abroad, believing that she was a cold-hearted person whom he would do well to forget.

He had been travelling in the East, and was on his return home when, at Rome, he saw the account of Captain Brown’s death in Galignani.

Just then Miss Matty, who had been out all the morning, and had only lately returned to the house, burst in with a face of dismay and outraged propriety.

“Oh, goodness me!” she said.  “Deborah, there’s a gentleman sitting in the drawing-room with his arm round Miss Jessie’s waist!” Miss Matty’s eyes looked large with terror.

Miss Jenkyns snubbed her down in an instant.

“The most proper place in the world for his arm to be in.  Go away, Matilda, and mind your own business.”  This from her sister, who had hitherto been a model of feminine decorum, was a blow for poor Miss Matty, and with a double shock she left the room.

The last time I ever saw poor Miss Jenkyns was many years after this.  Mrs Gordon had kept up a warm and affectionate intercourse with all at Cranford.  Miss Jenkyns, Miss Matty, and Miss Pole had all been to visit her, and returned with wonderful accounts of her house, her husband, her dress, and her looks.  For, with happiness, something of her early bloom returned; she had been a year or two younger than we had taken her for.  Her eyes were always lovely, and, as Mrs Gordon, her dimples were not out of place.  At the time to which I have referred, when I last saw Miss Jenkyns, that lady was old and feeble, and had lost something of her strong mind.  Little Flora Gordon was staying with the Misses Jenkyns, and when I came in she was reading aloud to Miss Jenkyns, who lay feeble and changed on the sofa.  Flora put down the Rambler when I came in.

“Ah!” said Miss Jenkyns, “you find me changed, my dear.  If can’t see as I used to do.  I Flora were not here to read to me, I hardly know how I should get through the day.  Did you ever read the Rambler?  It’s a wonderful book—­wonderful! and the most improving reading for Flora” (which I daresay it would have been, if she could have read half the words without spelling, and could have understood the meaning of a third), “better than that strange old book, with the queer name, poor Captain Brown was killed for reading—­that book by Mr Boz, you know—­’Old Poz’; when I was a girl—­but that’s a long time ago—­I acted Lucy in ‘Old Poz.’” She babbled on long enough for Flora to get a good long spell at the “Christmas Carol,” which Miss Matty had left on the table.