There were one or two consequences arising from this general but unacknowledged poverty, and this very much acknowledged gentility, which were not amiss, and which might be introduced into many circles of society to their great improvement.  For instance, the inhabitants of Cranford kept early hours, and clattered home in their pattens, under the guidance of a lantern-bearer, about nine o’clock at night; and the whole town was abed and asleep by half-past ten.  Moreover, it was considered “vulgar” (a tremendous word in Cranford) to give anything expensive, in the way of eatable or drinkable, at the evening entertainments.  Wafer bread-and-butter and sponge-biscuits were all that the Honourable Mrs Jamieson gave; and she was sister-in-law to the late Earl of Glenmire, although she did practise such “elegant economy.”

“Elegant economy!” How naturally one falls back into the phraseology of Cranford!  There, economy was always “elegant,” and money-spending always “vulgar and ostentatious”; a sort of sour-grapeism which made us very peaceful and satisfied.  I never shall forget the dismay felt when a certain Captain Brown came to live at Cranford, and openly spoke about his being poor—­not in a whisper to an intimate friend, the doors and windows being previously closed, but in the public street! in a loud military voice! alleging his poverty as a reason for not taking a particular house.  The ladies of Cranford were already rather moaning over the invasion of their territories by a man and a gentleman.  He was a half-pay captain, and had obtained some situation on a neighbouring railroad, which had been vehemently petitioned against by the little town; and if, in addition to his masculine gender, and his connection with the obnoxious railroad, he was so brazen as to talk of being poor—­why, then, indeed, he must be sent to Coventry.  Death was as true and as common as poverty; yet people never spoke about that, loud out in the streets.  It was a word not to be mentioned to ears polite.  We had tacitly agreed to ignore that any with whom we associated on terms of visiting equality could ever be prevented by poverty from doing anything that they wished.  If we walked to or from a party, it was because the night was so fine, or the air so refreshing, not because sedan-chairs were expensive.  If we wore prints, instead of summer silks, it was because we preferred a washing material; and so on, till we blinded ourselves to the vulgar fact that we were, all of us, people of very moderate means.  Of course, then, we did not know what to make of a man who could speak of poverty as if it was not a disgrace.  Yet, somehow, Captain Brown made himself respected in Cranford, and was called upon, in spite of all resolutions to the contrary.  I was surprised to hear his opinions quoted as authority at a visit which I paid to Cranford about a year after he had settled in the town.  My own friends had been among the bitterest opponents of any proposal to visit