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257
Cranford
·
Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
75
The
rector’s
letters,
and
those
of
his
wife
and
mother-in-law,
had
all
been
tolerably
short
and
pithy,
written
in
a
straight
hand,
with
the
lines
very
close
together.
Sometimes
the
whole
letter
was
contained
on
a
mere
scrap
of
paper.
The
paper
was
very
yellow,
and
the
ink
very
brown;
some
of
the
sheets
were
(as
Miss
Matty
made
me
observe)
the
old
original
post,
with
the
stamp
in
the
corner
representing
a
post-boy
riding
for
life
and
twanging
his
horn.
The
letters
of
Mrs
Jenkyns
and
her
mother
were
fastened
with
a
great
round
red
wafer;
for
it
was
before
Miss
Edgeworth’s
“patronage”
had
banished
wafers
from
polite
society.
It
was
evident,
from
the
tenor
of
what
was
said,
that
franks
were
in
great
request,
and
were
even
used
as
a
means
of
paying
debts
by
needy
members
of
Parliament.
The
rector
sealed
his
epistles
with
an
immense
coat
of
arms,
and
showed
by
the
care
with
which
he
had
performed
this
ceremony
that
he
expected
they
should
be
cut
open,
not
broken
by
any
thoughtless
or
impatient
hand.
Now,
Miss
Jenkyns’s
letters
were
of
a
later
date
in
form
and
writing.
She
wrote
on
the
square
sheet
which
we
have
learned
to
call
old-fashioned.
Her
hand
was
admirably
calculated,
together
with
her
use
of
many-syllabled
words,
to
fill
up
a
sheet,
and
then
came
the
pride
and
delight
of
crossing.
Poor
Miss
Matty
got
sadly
puzzled
with
this,
for
the
words
gathered
size
like
snowballs,
and
towards
the
end
of
her
letter
Miss
Jenkyns
used
to
become
quite
sesquipedalian.
In
one
to
her
father,
slightly
theological
and
controversial
in
its
tone,
she
had
spoken
of
Herod,
Tetrarch
of
Idumea.
Miss
Matty
read
it
“Herod
Petrarch
of
Etruria,”
and
was
just
as
well
pleased
as
if
she
had
been
right.
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