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257
Cranford
·
Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
64
CHAPTER
V.
OLD
LETTERS
I
HAVE
often
noticed
that
almost
every
one
has
his
own
individual
small
economies—
careful
habits
of
saving
fractions
of
pennies
in
some
one
peculiar
direction—
any
disturbance
of
which
annoys
him
more
than
spending
shillings
or
pounds
on
some
real
extravagance.
An
old
gentleman
of
my
acquaintance,
who
took
the
intelligence
of
the
failure
of
a
Joint-Stock
Bank,
in
which
some
of
his
money
was
invested,
with
stoical
mildness,
worried
his
family
all
through
a
long
summer’s
day
because
one
of
them
had
torn
(instead
of
cutting)
out
the
written
leaves
of
his
now
useless
bank-book;
of
course,
the
corresponding
pages
at
the
other
end
came
out
as
well,
and
this
little
unnecessary
waste
of
paper
(his
private
economy)
chafed
him
more
than
all
the
loss
of
his
money.
Envelopes
fretted
his
soul
terribly
when
they
first
came
in;
the
only
way
in
which
he
could
reconcile
himself
to
such
waste
of
his
cherished
article
was
by
patiently
turning
inside
out
all
that
were
sent
to
him,
and
so
making
them
serve
again.
Even
now,
though
tamed
by
age,
I
see
him
casting
wistful
glances
at
his
daughters
when
they
send
a
whole
inside
of
a
half-sheet
of
note
paper,
with
the
three
lines
of
acceptance
to
an
invitation,
written
on
only
one
of
the
sides.
I
am
not
above
owning
that
I
have
this
human
weakness
myself.
String
is
my
foible.
My
pockets
get
full
of
little
hanks
of
it,
picked
up
and
twisted
together,
ready
for
uses
that
never
come.
I
am
seriously
annoyed
if
any
one
cuts
the
string
of
a
parcel
instead
of
patiently
and
faithfully
undoing
it
fold
by
fold.
How
people
can
bring
themselves
to
use
india-rubber
rings,
which
are
a
sort
of
deification
of
string,
as
lightly
as
they
do,
I
cannot
imagine.
To
me
an
india-rubber
ring
is
a
precious
treasure.
I
have
one
which
is
not
new—
one
that
I
picked
up
off
the
floor
nearly
six
years
ago.
I
have
really
tried
to
use
it,
but
my
heart
failed
me,
and
I
could
not
commit
the
extravagance.
Marker
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Fine marker
White-out
Fine white-out
Circle
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Unmarker
Hand
Scalpel
Dice
Sieve
Purify
Undo
Redo
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