Lab
Library
Journal
Shop
Sign in
to keep
Share image
1
257
Cranford
·
Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
213
We
had
too
much
to
think
about
to
talk
much
that
afternoon.
It
passed
over
very
tranquilly.
But
when
the
tea-urn
was
brought
in
a
new
thought
came
into
my
head.
Why
should
not
Miss
Matty
sell
tea—
be
an
agent
to
the
East
India
Tea
Company
which
then
existed?
I
could
see
no
objections
to
this
plan,
while
the
advantages
were
many—
always
supposing
that
Miss
Matty
could
get
over
the
degradation
of
condescending
to
anything
like
trade.
Tea
was
neither
greasy
nor
sticky—
grease
and
stickiness
being
two
of
the
qualities
which
Miss
Matty
could
not
endure.
No
shop-window
would
be
required.
A
small,
genteel
notification
of
her
being
licensed
to
sell
tea
would,
it
is
true,
be
necessary,
but
I
hoped
that
it
could
be
placed
where
no
one
would
see
it.
Neither
was
tea
a
heavy
article,
so
as
to
tax
Miss
Matty’s
fragile
strength.
The
only
thing
against
my
plan
was
the
buying
and
selling
involved.
While
I
was
giving
but
absent
answers
to
the
questions
Miss
Matty
was
putting—
almost
as
absently—
we
heard
a
clumping
sound
on
the
stairs,
and
a
whispering
outside
the
door,
which
indeed
once
opened
and
shut
as
if
by
some
invisible
agency.
After
a
little
while
Martha
came
in,
dragging
after
her
a
great
tall
young
man,
all
crimson
with
shyness,
and
finding
his
only
relief
in
perpetually
sleeking
down
his
hair.
“Please,
ma’am,
he’s
only
Jem
Hearn,”
said
Martha,
by
way
of
an
introduction;
and
so
out
of
breath
was
she
that
I
imagine
she
had
had
some
bodily
struggle
before
she
could
overcome
his
reluctance
to
be
presented
on
the
courtly
scene
of
Miss
Matilda
Jenkyns’s
drawing-room.
Marker
Marker
Fine marker
White-out
Fine white-out
Circle
Paint
Unmarker
Hand
Scalpel
Dice
Sieve
Purify
Undo
Redo
Start over
