“Why, Peggy, what have you brought us?” and looked pleasantly surprised at the unexpected pleasure) all sorts of good things for supper—­scalloped oysters, potted lobsters, jelly, a dish called “little Cupids” (which was in great favour with the Cranford ladies, although too expensive to be given, except on solemn and state occasions—­macaroons sopped in brandy, I should have called it, if I had not known its more refined and classical name).  In short, we were evidently to be feasted with all that was sweetest and best; and we thought it better to submit graciously, even at the cost of our gentility—­ which never ate suppers in general, but which, like most non-supper-eaters, was particularly hungry on all special occasions.

Miss Barker, in her former sphere, had, I daresay, been made acquainted with the beverage they call cherry-brandy.  We none of us had ever seen such a thing, and rather shrank back when she proffered it us—­“just a little, leetle glass, ladies; after the oysters and lobsters, you know.  Shell-fish are sometimes thought not very wholesome.”  We all shook our heads like female mandarins; but, at last, Mrs Jamieson suffered herself to be persuaded, and we followed her lead.  It was not exactly unpalatable, though so hot and so strong that we thought ourselves bound to give evidence that we were not accustomed to such things by coughing terribly—­almost as strangely as Miss Barker had done, before we were admitted by Peggy.

“It’s very strong,” said Miss Pole, as she put down her empty glass; “I do believe there’s spirit in it.”

“Only a little drop—­just necessary to make it keep,” said Miss Barker.  “You know we put brandy-pepper over our preserves to make them keep.  I often feel tipsy myself from eating damson tart.”

I question whether damson tart would have opened Mrs Jamieson’s heart as the cherry-brandy did; but she told us of a coming event, respecting which she had been quite silent till that moment.

“My sister-in-law, Lady Glenmire, is coming to stay with me.”

There was a chorus of “Indeed!” and then a pause.  Each one rapidly reviewed her wardrobe, as to its fitness to appear in the presence of a baron’s widow; for, of course, a series of small festivals were always held in Cranford on the arrival of a visitor at any of our friends’ houses.  We felt very pleasantly excited on the present occasion.

Not long after this the maids and the lanterns were announced.  Mrs Jamieson had the sedan-chair, which had squeezed itself into Miss Barker’s narrow lobby with some difficulty, and most literally “stopped the way.”  It required some skilful manoeuvring on the part of the old chairmen (shoemakers by day, but when summoned to carry the sedan dressed up in a strange old livery—­long great-coats, with small capes, coeval with the sedan, and similar to the dress of the class in Hogarth’s pictures) to edge, and back, and try at it again, and finally to succeed in carrying their burden out of Miss Barker’s front door.  Then we heard their quick pit-a-pat along the quiet little street as we put on our calashes and pinned up our gowns; Miss Barker hovering about us with offers of help, which, if she had not remembered her former occupation, and wished us to forget it, would have been much more pressing.