eep her alive. But my advice is, kill the poor creature
at once."

Miss Betsy Barker dried her eyes, and thanked the captain heartily. She
set to work, and by and by all the town turned out to see the Alderney
meekly going to her pasture, clad in dark grey flannel. I have watched
her myself many a time. Do you ever see cows dressed in grey flannel in
London?

Captain Brown had taken a small house on the outskirts of the town,
where he had lived with his two daughters. He must have been upwards of
sixty at the time of the first visit I paid to Cranford after I had left
it as a residence. But he had a wiry, well-trained, elastic figure, a
stiff military throw-back of his head, and a springing step, which made
him appear much younger than he was. His eldest daughter looked almost
as old as himself, and betrayed the fact that his real was more than his
apparent age. Miss Brown must have been forty; she had a sickly, pained,
careworn expression on her face, and looked as if the gaiety of youth
had long faded out of sight. Even when young she must have been plain
and hard-featured. Miss Jessie Brown was ten years younger than her
sister, and twenty shades prettier. Her face was round and dimpled. Miss
Jenkyns once said, in a passion against Captain Brown (the cause of
which I will tell you presently), that "she thought it was time for Miss
Jessie to leave off her dimples, and not always to be trying to look
like a child." It was true there was something childlike in her face;
and there will be, I think, till she dies, though she should live to a
hundred. Her eyes were large, blue, wondering eyes, looking straight at
you; her nose was unformed and snub, and her lips were red and dewy; she
wore her hair, too, in little rows of curls, which heightened this
appearance. I do not know whether she was pretty or not; but I liked her
face, and so did everybody, and I do not think she could help her
dimples. She had something of her father's jauntiness of gait and
manner; and any female observer might detect a slight difference in the
attire of the two sisters--that of Miss Jessie being about two pounds
per annum more expensive than Miss Brown's. Two pounds was a large sum
in Captain Brown's annual disbursements.

Such was the impression made upon me by the Brown family when I first
saw them all together in Cranford Church. The captain I had met
before--on the occasion of the smoky chimney, which he had cured by some
simple alterati