But I am getting on too fast, in describing the dresses of the company.  I should first relate the gathering on the way to Mrs Jamieson’s.  That lady lived in a large house just outside the town.  A road which had known what it was to be a street ran right before the house, which opened out upon it without any intervening garden or court.  Whatever the sun was about, he never shone on the front of that house.  To be sure, the living-rooms were at the back, looking on to a pleasant garden; the front windows only belonged to kitchens and housekeepers’ rooms, and pantries, and in one of them Mr Mulliner was reported to sit.  Indeed, looking askance, we often saw the back of a head covered with hair powder, which also extended itself over his coat-collar down to his very waist; and this imposing back was always engaged in reading the St James’s Chronicle, opened wide, which, in some degree, accounted for the length of time the said newspaper was in reaching us—­equal subscribers with Mrs Jamieson, though, in right of her honourableness, she always had the reading of it first.  This very Tuesday, the delay in forwarding the last number had been particularly aggravating; just when both Miss Pole and Miss Matty, the former more especially, had been wanting to see it, in order to coach up the Court news ready for the evening’s interview with aristocracy.  Miss Pole told us she had absolutely taken time by the forelock, and been dressed by five o’clock, in order to be ready if the St James’s Chronicle should come in at the last moment—­the very St James’s Chronicle which the powdered head was tranquilly and composedly reading as we passed the accustomed window this evening.

“The impudence of the man!” said Miss Pole, in a low indignant whisper.  “I should like to ask him whether his mistress pays her quarter-share for his exclusive use.”

We looked at her in admiration of the courage of her thought; for Mr Mulliner was an object of great awe to all of us.  He seemed never to have forgotten his condescension in coming to live at Cranford.  Miss Jenkyns, at times, had stood forth as the undaunted champion of her sex, and spoken to him on terms of equality; but even Miss Jenkyns could get no higher.  In his pleasantest and most gracious moods he looked like a sulky cockatoo.  He did not speak except in gruff monosyllables.  He would wait in the hall when we begged him not to wait, and then look deeply offended because we had kept him there, while, with trembling, hasty hands we prepared ourselves for appearing in company.

Miss Pole ventured on a small joke as we went upstairs, intended, though addressed to us, to afford Mr Mulliner some slight amusement.  We all smiled, in order to seem as if we felt at our ease, and timidly looked for Mr Mulliner’s sympathy.  Not a muscle of that wooden face had relaxed; and we were grave in an instant.