nd we have never heard of Peter
since then. I believe he is dead myself. Sometimes when I sit by myself
and the house is quiet, I think I hear his step coming up the street,
and my heart begins to flutter and beat; but the sound goes, and Peter
never comes back."

_IV.--Friends in Need_

The years rolled on. I spent my time between Drumble and Cranford. I was
thankful that I happened to be staying with Miss Matty when the Town and
County Bank failed, which had such a disastrous effect on her little
fortune.

It was an example to me, and I fancy it might be to many others, to see
how immediately Miss Matty set about the retrenchment she knew to be
right under her altered circumstances. I did the little I could. Some
months back a conjuror had given a performance in the Cranford Assembly
Rooms. By a strange set of circumstances the identity of Signor Brunoni
was revealed. He was plain Samuel Brown, who had fallen out of his cart
and had to be attended by our doctor. I went to visit the patient and
his wife, and learned that she had been India. She told me a long story
about being befriended, after a perilous journey, by a kind Englishman
who lived right in the midst of the natives. It was his name which
astonished me. Agra Jenkyns.

Could Agra Jenkyns be the long lost Peter? I resolved to say nothing to
Miss Matty, but got the address from the signor (as we still called him
from habit), spelt by sound, and very queer it looked, and posted a
letter to him.

All sorts of plans were discussed for Miss Matty's future. I thought of
all the things by which a woman, past middle age, and with the education
common to ladies fifty years ago, could earn or add to a living without
materially losing caste; but at length I put even this last clause on
one side, and wondered what in the world Miss Matty could do. Even
teaching was out of the question, for, reckoning over her
accomplishments, I had to come down to reading, writing, and
arithmetic--and in reading the chapter every morning she always coughed
before coming to long words.

I was still in a quandary the next morning, when I received a letter
from Miss Pole, so mysteriously wrapped up and with so many seals on it
to secure secrecy that I had to tear the paper before I could unfold it.

It summoned me to go to Miss Pole at 11 a.m., the a.m. twice dashed
under as if I were likely to come at eleven at night, when all Cranford
was usually abed and asleep by ten. I wen