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257
Cranford
·
Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
69
“We
must
burn
them,
I
think,”
said
Miss
Matty,
looking
doubtfully
at
me.
“No
one
will
care
for
them
when
I
am
gone.”
And
one
by
one
she
dropped
them
into
the
middle
of
the
fire,
watching
each
blaze
up,
die
out,
and
rise
away,
in
faint,
white,
ghostly
semblance,
up
the
chimney,
before
she
gave
another
to
the
same
fate.
The
room
was
light
enough
now;
but
I,
like
her,
was
fascinated
into
watching
the
destruction
of
those
letters,
into
which
the
honest
warmth
of
a
manly
heart
had
been
poured
forth.
The
next
letter,
likewise
docketed
by
Miss
Jenkyns,
was
endorsed,
“Letter
of
pious
congratulation
and
exhortation
from
my
venerable
grandfather
to
my
beloved
mother,
on
occasion
of
my
own
birth.
Also
some
practical
remarks
on
the
desirability
of
keeping
warm
the
extremities
of
infants,
from
my
excellent
grandmother.”
The
first
part
was,
indeed,
a
severe
and
forcible
picture
of
the
responsibilities
of
mothers,
and
a
warning
against
the
evils
that
were
in
the
world,
and
lying
in
ghastly
wait
for
the
little
baby
of
two
days
old.
His
wife
did
not
write,
said
the
old
gentleman,
because
he
had
forbidden
it,
she
being
indisposed
with
a
sprained
ankle,
which
(he
said)
quite
incapacitated
her
from
holding
a
pen.
However,
at
the
foot
of
the
page
was
a
small
“T.O.,”
and
on
turning
it
over,
sure
enough,
there
was
a
letter
to
“my
dear,
dearest
Molly,”
begging
her,
when
she
left
her
room,
whatever
she
did,
to
go
up
stairs
before
going
down:
and
telling
her
to
wrap
her
baby’s
feet
up
in
flannel,
and
keep
it
warm
by
the
fire,
although
it
was
summer,
for
babies
were
so
tender.
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