About this story
Captain Brown announces his poverty as plainly as his admiration for Dickens, unsettling Miss Deborah Jenkyns and disarming her gentler sister, Miss Matty, who accepts his shabby copy of Pickwick over Deborah's objections. The visit that began as reconnaissance turns urgent when his elder daughter's cough worsens and a medicine bottle arrives with two conflicting doses on its label.
How it opens
Cranford's best drawing rooms were governed by women and visited by men under caution.
Miss Deborah JenkynsMary, economy is admirable only when practised without announcement.
Miss Matty Jenkyns poured tea from a silver pot whose handle had been privately repaired.
Miss PoleThe empty Johnson house has been taken by a military gentleman and two daughters.
Choose
A father with daughters may prove a quiet neighbor.
We should call before gossip calls for us.