`you're not
such a bad old beast!'

"Rather beastly of me all the same to bore you with all this. Forgive
me! As Vincent has appointed me his confidant I hear such a lot about
the affair that I turned on to it without thinking... The wedding won't
come off for another year. When _I'm_ engaged, I'll be married sharp!

"Now here's a subject for discussing in your next letter--Love and
marriage! It's a big bill, and--be discursive, please! You can't
possibly discuss such questions on one sheet. We know, of course, that
you are never to many. You are doomed to dry-nurse Martin for life,
whether he wants you or no. (Brutal! Sorry, dear!) Things being as
they are at the moment, we may premise that I also am doomed to
celibacy, but as onlookers see most of the game, there's no reason why
we shouldn't wag our heads together over the follies of lovers, and
expatiate on how much better we should have managed things ourselves.

"There's no Cranford reason, I suppose, why a young female should not
discuss these things with a person of the opposite sex? Even vowed to
celibacy as _you_ are, I expect there are moments when you have dreamed
dreams, and seen as in a vision the not impossible He.

"Tell me about him, Katrine! I've a fancy to hear.

"Now the sort of girl _I_ should choose... But this scrawl is too long
already. That must keep for another day.

"Salaams!

"Jim Blair."

CHAPTER NINE.

"Cumly, _July 10, 19--_.

"Dear Captain Blair,

"I'm in a grumbly mood this morning. Do you mind? Something annoyed me
yesterday, and this is the lachrymose aftermath. I'm sorry, for your
sake as well as my own, for it's mail day, and it's now or never to
catch that birthday! Perhaps a morning's writing will work it `off'
better than any other distraction which this place affords. It's easy
for you away at the other side of the world to sentimentalise over my
`Cranford' home, but if I had been asked to state the spot of all others
in which I would _not_ choose to live, it would be just such a derelict
little hamlet as that in which fate has dumped me. It's a pretty little
place, built on the side of a hill, with a precipitous High Street which
is dangerous to drive down, and puffy to walk up. There is a church at
the top, a chapel at the bottom, and a bank half-way; likewise a linen
draper's shop, which serves the purpose of a lady's club, for no
self-respecting woman allows a morning to pass without pop