Cranford

Mrs. Jamieson:
I am not at all diverted!

Miss Pole:
[Ladies are buying textiles] I think I have the complexion for this plaid.

Mrs. Forrester:
People might think you a Scots.

Miss Pole:
Or stripes?

Mrs. Forrester:
Stripes; very diminishing for a robust figure!

Miss Galindo:
Mr. Carter, our work will be done by noon with so many hands assisting! And yet you told Lady Ludlow you were so overwhelmed with correspondence you could not cope without a dedicated clerk.

Mr. Carter:
I needed no help. I simply hope to help another!

Miss Galindo:
[to Mr. Carter] I have the fondest respect for Lady Ludlow. But she will always look at Harry and see a poacher's child. Just as you will always look at me and see a woman.

Miss Galindo:
I know my presence does not please you. I had thought to stick my pen behind my ear and say "zounds" from time to time, but it will not convince you of my worth.

Mr. Carter:
Please forgive me for speaking so plainly, but you are a milliner.

Miss Galindo:
Do you think I long to stitch caps and sew feathers onto bonnets? I found myself obliged to earn my living, and society offered me no other opportunity. And since I find myself commissioned to make the coronets for May Day, I have more pressing things to do than stage this pantomime of assisting you!

Mr. Carter:
I did not ask for you to be installed here!

Man:
[to Jem] Letter.

Jem Hearne:
It's from me mam. 'Aunt Clegg fell prey to dropsy in the second week of Lent. She had hid a will behind the clock. The clock came to me and you are left a token, too. I enclose the legacy.'

Job Gregson:
I had a legacy once. It was a hat.

Jem Hearne:
This is more than a hat. It's a five-pound note!

[Lady Ludlow has forced Mr. Carter to stop tutoring Harry]

Mr. Carter:
I am sorry, Harry.

Harry Gregson:
For what? Teaching me to read?

Mr. Carter:
I will never be sorry for teaching you to read! I only regret that the world is such that you could be punished for learning.

Harry Gregson:
You can't stop this happening, can you, Mr. Carter?

Mr. Carter:
[Looks away]

Mary Smith:
Martha! You must listen to reason!

Martha:
Reason? Reason just means what someone else has got to say! I can talk reason when I've got a mind to, and I've got a mind to now.

Mary Smith:
Martha, your loyalty does you credit and Miss Matty will be lost without you.

Martha:
You're staying with her!

Mary Smith:
I wouldn't dream of leaving! But I at least can pay my way here, with the allowance I get from my father. The truth of the matter is that Miss Matty is now going to have such a meager sum to live upon, she will not even be able to find the money for your food. Indeed, she will be hard-pressed to find the money for her own.

Martha:
Is it as bad as that?

Mary Smith:
It is every bit as bad as that.

Lady Ludlow:
The plan is for a new and superior residence for Septimus in Italy. He enclosed it with his letter.

Mr. Carter:
The cost of building this will be...

Lady Ludlow:
...considerable.

Lady Ludlow:
I cannot deny him. I should, I know I should. But I find I must wrestle my reverence for Hanbury with my regard for him. And he is always the victor.

Lady Ludlow:
You cannot know what it is to have a son, Mr. Carter.

Mr. Carter:
Perhaps I cannot know, but I think I can imagine it.

Martha:
Jem and I have decided to get married!

Jem Hearne:
We what?

Man:
[to Jem] Letter.

Jem Hearne:
It's from me mam. "Aunt Clegg fell prey to dropsy in the second week of Lent. She had hid a will behind the clock. The clock came to me and you are left a token, too. I enclose the legacy."

Job Gregson:
I had a legacy once. It was a hat.

Jem Hearne:
Thisis more than a hat. It's a five-pound note!

[Mrs. Forester's cow has fallen into a lime pit and is struggling in vain to get itself out]

Mary Smith:
I think the odour is the burning of the poor thing's hair - the lime has singed it off.

Mrs. Forester:
[shrieks] What care I if she's bald?

Miss Deborah Jenkyns:
She will not be bald if she cannot be recovered - she will be naked!

Captain Brown:
It pains me to say it, Mrs. Forester, but the poor bad beast will have to be destroyed - unless you're prepared to dress it in pyjamas!

[Clara Smith hands her baby to Mary]

Mrs. Clara Smith:
[cattily] Hold Ralph. Your face will look so much pleasanter with a baby held up next to it.

[Captain Brown has just announced that he will be Head of Works for the new railway line that is to be built to Cranford]

Miss Deborah Jenkyns:
You are the architect of our community's destruction. You've betrayed your daughter, your neighbours and your town. And you've wilfully kept your machinations secret.

Captain Brown:
I did not mean to deceive you. I am sorry if I have offended you.

Miss Deborah Jenkyns:
Oh, do not think that you owe us an apology. Apologies are required only when friends cause vexation to friends. Our acquaintance is clearly at an end.

Mrs. Jamieson:
Why this maniac for the oriental? We are not performing in a pantomime!

Miss Pole:
The railroad will cut across Sir Charles's estate and power towards us like a bull that cannot be stopped and by 1845 we shall we utterly undone!

Miss Deborah Jenkyns:
[to Captain Brown] You are the architect of our community's destruction!

Miss Pole:
Oh! I see someone doesn't have to crush her silk.

Lady Ludlow:
[Talking of her son] Dear Septimus. I still hope that he may find a suitable bride whilst living out in Italy and there may yet be a heir for all of this.

Sir Charles Maulver:
I think, perhaps, that you should not hope too hard.

Miss Pole:
Put no further pastries on your lips or you will choke when you hear the news I must report! This is more preposterous and shocking than when the Wombwell lions came and the little child's arm was bit keen off!

Miss Deborah Jenkyns:
That was a most charming entertainment, Major Gordon.

Major Gordon:
I think it helped that you beat time with your spoon.

Miss Deborah Jenkyns:
I generally do so when the piece transports me.

Dr. Harrison:
[to Caroline] These palpitations are, at the very least, injurious to your mother's health.

Miss Tomkinson:
Doctor Harrison, we are sisters!

Miss Deborah Jenkyns:
Jessie, convey your news.

Jessie Brown:
I have been sent anemones. And a note. [reads] "With the compliments of Major Gordon".

Miss Matty Jenkyns:
Anemones. We must look them up in 'The Language of Flowers'.

Harry Gregson:
You've got to fill the jug and take it home. The baby's starving.

Malachi Gregson:
I don't like touching udders.

Harry Gregson:
If you fetch milk for the baby every night I'll get you a bun of your own on a Friday.

Malachi Gregson:
Every Friday?

Mrs. Forrester:
It's all such a sequence of continuous delights.

Mary Smith:
It attracted me at first because it was my mother's home, but I find I love it for its own sake now. All around us England shifts and changes but Cranford stands fast. Its women are like Amazons, and to those who live here it is the world entire.

Miss Pole:
[running to the other ladies] Put no further pastries to your lips for you will choke when you hear the news I must report. This is more preposterous and shocking than when Wormald's lions came and the little child's arm was bit clean off. [catches breath]

Mrs. Forrester:
[interrupts] The railway is to come to Cranford!

Miss Pole:
[annoyed, to Mrs Forrester] I rehearsed those words all the way from the worsted work.

Miss Deborah Jenkyns:
You will neither of you be so tender when Cranford is overrun by noise and disease and the Irish.

Miss Matty Jenkyns:
I suppose now there will nobody to call me Matilda anymore. Deborah did not care for my name being shortened but everybody did it, except she.

Miss Deborah Jenkyns:
I suddenly have a headache of phenomenal dimension.

Miss Deborah Jenkyns:
Captain Brown's conduct is not to be tolerated. To insinuate himself into our society like a snake...

Miss Matty Jenkyns:
Oh, sister, not a snake! That is very harsh.

Miss Deborah Jenkyns:
He is at the very least a wolf in sheep's attire.

Lady Ludlow:
I always think the garden party shows Hanbury off at its very best. It is a pity that my son's health will not permit him to witness it.

Mr. Carter:
Has Lord Septimus sent word?

Lady Ludlow:
I received a letter just this morning. Most regretfully expressed.

Mr. Carter:
Perhaps next year we might commission an artist to record the event. An engraving could be sent to Italy.

Lady Ludlow:
Next year, Mr. Carter, I am certain that Lord Septimus will be with us.

[Bessie, Mrs. Forrester's cow, has fallen into a lime pit]

Mary Smith:
I think the odor is the burning of the poor thing's hair. The lime has singed it off.

Mrs. Forrester:
What care I if she lives on bald?

Miss Deborah Jenkyns:
She will not be bald if she cannot recover - she will be naked!

Captain Brown:
It pains me to say so, Mrs. Forrester, but the poor bare beast will have to be destroyed.

Mrs. Forrester:
[Wails]

Captain Brown:
[Shrugging]... Unless you are prepared to dress it in pajamas.

Lady Ludlow:
Dear Septimus. I still hope that he may find a suitable bride whilst living out in Italy, that there may yet be an heir for all this.

Miss Galindo, Sir Charles Maulver:
[Look at each other significantly]

Sir Charles Maulver:
I think, perhaps, that you should not hope too hard.

[Miss Deborah has just found out that Captain Brown works for the railway]

Miss Deborah Jenkyns:
You are the architect of our community's destruction! You have betrayed your daughter, your neighbors, and your town, and you've willfully kept your machinations secret!

Captain Brown:
I did not mean to deceive you. I am sorry if I have offended you.

Miss Deborah Jenkyns:
Oh, do not think that you owe us an apology. Apologies are required only when friends cause vexation to friends. Our acquaintance is clearly at an end.

Mr. Carter:
You once said to me that if there was a school in Cranford, you would not go. Do you stand by that?

Harry Gregson:
There ain't no school, only a housework school.

Mr. Carter:
There is a world out there that is full of books, and figures, and words, and rules, and symbols that make all of the parts of our society move together like one great and glorious machine.

Harry Gregson:
[Quoting his father, a gypsy] Learning's not for everybody.

Mr. Carter:
We are all born knowing nothing, and we can die that way should we so choose. Now, ignorance is not a crime. But it is a waste. And waste is sinful.

Harry Gregson:
I don't know.

Mr. Carter:
What don't you know?

Harry Gregson:
Where to start.

Mr. Carter:
I'll show you where to start.

[Mary Smith is coming to stay with Matty and Deborah Jenkyns and they are preparing her bedroom]

Miss Matty Jenkyns:
Ought we to light a fire, do you suppose?

Miss Deborah Jenkyns:
[horrified] A fire? Our guest gave us a deal of information in her letter, but I saw no mention of her being ill.

[Mary has brought oranges as a present for Matty and Deborah]

Miss Deborah Jenkyns:
I would prefer it if I did not enjoy oranges. Consuming them is a most incommodious business.

Miss Matty Jenkyns:
There is not such a lot of juice, Deborah dear - only when they are sliced with a knife.

Mary Smith:
At home we make a little hole in our oranges and we suck them.

[Deborah looks horrified]

Miss Matty Jenkyns:
That is the way I like to take them best, but Deborah says it is vulgar and altogether too redolent of a ritual undertaken by little babies. My sister does not care for the expression

[whispers]

Miss Matty Jenkyns:
"suck".

Miss Deborah Jenkyns:
[primly] We will repair to our rooms... and consume our fruit in solitude.

[embarrassed, Deborah gets up and leaves the table]

Miss Deborah Jenkyns:
Jem Hearne has had nothing but jelly and egg wine for a week. If the bones are to knit, some solid food is needed.

Mary Smith:
Does rice pudding count as solid food?

Miss Deborah Jenkyns:
Martha made this - it could be eaten with a fork!

[Mary assisted Dr Harrison in setting Jem Hearne's broken arm]

Miss Deborah Jenkyns:
Dr Harrison was full of praise for you. He said you were the equal of a man.

Mary Smith:
Did he?

Miss Deborah Jenkyns:
And I corrected him. No woman is the equal of a man - she is his superior in every single case.

[Lady Ludlow is interviewing Margaret Gidman who is applying to be a maid]

Lady Ludlow:
What is your father's occupation.

Margaret Gidman:
He's a cooper, madam. I've been accustomed to helping him.

Lady Ludlow:
To make his barrels?

Margaret Gidman:
[proudly] No, to cast up his accounts. And I taught myself to read, and write a bold clear hand. I can...

Lady Ludlow:
Enough! Margaret, your parents have served you ill by not stopping you from meddling in this manner. If you can read and write I cannot possibly take you into my employ.

Lady Ludlow:
[to herself] You're fit only for trade.

[Lady Ludlow walks off, discussing Margaret with Mr Carter]

Lady Ludlow:
Mr Carter, did you know that she was equipped beyond her station?

Mr. Carter:
It is becoming common for the lowest class to have some education.

Lady Ludlow:
The more common it becomes, the less I can condone it. Dissatisfaction will result as it did in France and the proper order of the world will be undone. You do not recall, I think, the reign of terror, Mr Carter. I had cousins in Paris and the knowledge of their fate will haunt me all my days.

Mr. Carter:
Margaret Gidman is not blessed with a great deal of advantage.

Lady Ludlow:
I am most concerned with the lot of those less fortunate. At my charitable school the girls are taught to serve and to know their prayers. That is all that is necessary to fit them for the world.

[a young mother has fallen over in the street and Captain Brown has helped her to her feet]

Miss Deborah Jenkyns:
I don't object to his helping her up - it's an act of Christian kindness. But to take her arm and offer to escort her home shows a *revolting* want of decorum.

Mary Smith:
[teasing Deborah] Perhaps Captain Brown has been reading too much Dickens.

Miss Deborah Jenkyns:
I think it altogether likely. Vulgar sentiment is so contageous.

[Mrs Forrester and Miss Pole were soaking some lace in buttermilk to improve its colour but Mrs Forrester's cat has just swallowed the lace while drinking the milk. Mrs Jamieson follows the women as they race through the street with the cat in a basket]

Mrs. Jamieson:
[shouting from her sedan chair] Mrs Forrester! Whatever has occurred?

Mrs. Forrester:
[frantically] It's my lace, Mrs Jamieson! My best lace!

Miss Pole:
[even more frantically] Which was made by nuns, last century, and you cannot get its like for love nor money any more, even though they have emancipated the Catholics!

Mrs. Jamieson:
What's happened to it?

Mrs. Forrester:
It's in the basket. In p*ssy's insides.

Miss Pole:
We are on our way to purchase "a compound".

Miss Pole:
This is no occasion for a sport! There's lace at stake!

Dr. Morgan:
All the rest will know the news by tea time.

Miss Deborah Jenkyns:
Or sooner, Dr. Morgan. This is Cranford.

Miss Matty Jenkyns:
My sister does not care for the expression *suck*.

Mrs. Jamieson:
What is all this agitation? Are the summer gloves coming?

Miss Matty Jenkyns:
There will be a great deal to occupy your pen. I regret that you missed the incident just last week. A wagon of bricks had cause to drive down King Street and became lodged with a pit cart headed the opposite way.

Mary Smith:
Were people hurt?

Miss Matty Jenkyns:
No no no no, but there was talk of summoning the constable.

Miss Matty Jenkyns:
You must gird your loins; it is all go in Cranford.

Caroline Tomkinson:
Sister, has something occurred?

Miss Tomkinson:
I think it likely; Miss Pole is gesticulating.

Miss Pole:
[referring to the maid] Mrs Forrester, with what do you nourish that girl?

Mrs. Forrester:
Only ordinary meat, cooked plain.

Miss Pole:
You've fed her 'til she's fit to pull a plough, and this is a dainty house.

Mrs. Jamieson:
[to the footmen carrying her sedan chair] Turn yourselves around; there are some ladies running!

Miss Deborah Jenkyns:
That man has put me in a most invidious position.

Miss Deborah Jenkyns:
If I allow her to do as she would wish she would be in contravention of all polite codes. What will people think of her? And worse, what will be said?

Miss Matty Jenkyns:
She wrote in such distress. There were exclamation marks.

Miss Matty Jenkyns:
Miss Pole, have pity. The poor girl is distraught. And well might we all be with Jem Hearne dead and the town without a carpenter.

Miss Deborah Jenkyns:
Speculation is the enemy of calm.

Lady Ludlow:
I am most concerned with the lot of those less fortunate. At my charitable school the girls are taught to serve and to know their prayers. That is all that is necessary to fit them for the world.

Miss Octavia Pole:
Young man! Out of our way! We are in the throes of an exceptional emergency!

Dr. Harrison:
Is someone in need of medical attention?

Miss Octavia Pole:
This is no occasion for sport! There is lace at stake!

Martha:
Dr. Morgan's at the door.

Miss Deborah Jenkyns:
Dr. Morgan's at the door, *Madam*.

Miss Matty Jenkyns:
Well, have you the leisure to speak to all of your patients in person, before the new young gentleman arrives?

Dr. Morgan:
I'm afraid I have not, but I have had occasion to inform Miss Pole.

Miss Deborah Jenkyns:
Miss Pole?

Dr. Morgan:
I shall repair to my consulting room to write to all the rest, and they will know the news by teatime.

Miss Deborah Jenkyns:
Or sooner, Dr. Morgan.

Jem Hearne:
I'm a carpenter. If I lose my arm, I lose the thing I am. Now, will I lose it?

Dr. Harrison:
No.

Miss Deborah Jenkyns:
Dr. Harrison was full of praise for you. He said you were the equal of a man.

Mary Smith:
Did he?

Miss Deborah Jenkyns:
Yes. And I corrected him. No woman is the equal of a man. She is his superior, in every single case.

Martha:
Miss Jessie Brown's in the hall.

Miss Deborah Jenkyns:
Miss Jessie Brown's in the hall, *Madam*.

Miss Deborah Jenkyns:
[Opening a gift from Captain Brown] Oh, Captain Brown. This is highly individual.

Captain Brown:
It's a coal shovel. Manufactured from oak, by myself.

Miss Matty Jenkyns:
Oh, sister. A thing we have wished for for an age.

Captain Brown:
Miss Deborah, I hope you will accept it. A token of my gratitude.

Miss Deborah Jenkyns:
I assure you, sir. No such token is required. We are no longer merely neighbors. We are friends.

Miss Matty Jenkyns:
I never liked the notion that the world is round. Makes me feel so giddy.

Mrs. Jamieson:
Caroline Tomkinson engaged to the butcher! Well, that's the last we'll see of Elegant Economy in this house.

Mr. Carter:
Miss Galindo, Lady Ludlow has mortgaged the estate - against my advice, without my knowledge, and as a direct consequence of your assistance!

Mr. Carter:
The power to make that decision was entirely your, My Lady.

Lady Ludlow:
I thank you for that acknowledgement. I hope you see I do this out of concern for my estate, and not the lack of it.

Lady Ludlow:
Do not even speak to me of the railway! I saw for myself the path it would slice across my land. I saw which fields would be devoured, which buildings tumbled! And the damage to Hanbury would be irreversible.

Mr. Carter:
My lady, you house and wage one man whose sole occupation is the winding of your clocks!

Lady Ludlow:
I have a great many clocks, Mr. Carter, and Will Jones is mute. Were it not for his position here, he would be in the workhouse, an institution I've heard you say that you abhor.

Lady Ludlow:
My duty is sacred. When I die I will hand my son his inheritance intact.

Mr. Carter:
With a mortgage on it!

Mr. Carter:
You have no money! The harvests have been appalling and your funds cannot support this latest charge. I'm sorry I must speak so plainly.

Lady Ludlow:
Are you, Mr. Carter?

Mr. Carter:
Yes. Because it grieves you.

[In a letter to Dr. Marshland]

Mary Smith:
I do not pretend to understand the nature of friendship between men, Dr. Marshland, but surely in its better points it resembles that between women. Where, then, was your loyalty to Dr. Harrison? Where was your kindness and respect? And where now is your compassion? His career is ruined, his reputation savaged, and his courtship annihilated, all by your willfully mischievous hand.

Miss Galindo:
I assure you, Mr. Carter, I had not the least notion what Lady Ludlow intended to do with the deeds.

Mr. Carter:
I am quite sure of that, just as I am quite sure that no... no one on this earth, man or woman, could have stopped her.

Miss Galindo:
The very thought of that mortgage must pierce her like a shard of glass.

Mr. Carter:
It pierces me. I've worked beside her these past ten years.

Miss Galindo:
She has made her choice, Mr. Carter. Septimus came first. All other things are rendered secondary.

Mr. Carter:
And the tragedy of it is that he'll never return to Hanbury. And as soon as he inherits, he will sell the whole estate.

Miss Galindo:
No, Mr. Carter. The tragedy is that Lady Ludlow knows it.

[Mr. Carter has been seriously injured in an explosion. Miss Galindo is fetching supplies for the doctor]

Mr. Carter:
Miss Galindo...

Miss Galindo:
Yes?

Mr. Carter:
When you are done running his errands, come back to me with a pen and ink.

[Mr. Carter has finished dictating his will]

Mr. Carter:
And that is it. Everything accounted for. It must be signed and witnessed.

Miss Galindo:
Mr. Carter, I would be a fine clerk, if I did not know the form of such a thing! Shall I ask Dr. Harrison?

Mr. Carter:
No. I don't want him to know I saw the likely end of this. You sign it.

[Lady Ludlow has brought supplies to help the doctor treating Mr. Carter]

Lady Ludlow:
You know as well as I that these are gestures made in place of an apology.

Mr. Carter:
We spoke in anger to each other, the other day. I am sorry.

Mr. Carter:
You have no money! The harvests have appalling and your funds cannot support this latest charge. I'm sorry I must speak so plainly.

Lady Ludlow:
Are you, Mr. Carter?

Mr. Carter:
Yes. Because it grieves you.

[Mr. Carter has finished dictated his will]

Mr. Carter:
And that is it. Everything accounted for. It must be signed and witnessed.

Miss Galindo:
Mr. Carter, I would be a fine clerk, if I did not know the form of such a thing! Shall I ask Dr. Harrison?

Mr. Carter:
No. I don't him to know I saw the likely end of this. You sign it.

[Job Gregson has been arrested and locked up in the town jail]

Sir Charles Maulver:
I issued the constable with a warrant for this arrest. The offence brought to me was robbery with violence. The man will be tried for that and found guilty.

Lady Ludlow:
He's guilty of poaching - and nothing more.

Sir Charles Maulver:
And nothing less. I'm plagued by poachers too, and they're all vagabonds. Vagabonds can be sentenced purely for their way of life - no specific crime is required. That, Lady Ludlow, is the law.

Lady Ludlow:
And who is it who makes the law? Those such as you in the House of Commons; those such as I in the House of Lords. You can also mete out justice as you see fit - that's your privilege as a magistrate. Convict Job Gregson... of poaching. And I will pay the fine. Five pounds from my own purse to save a father of six from jail. He'll work on my land, unwaged, in reparation.

Miss Pole:
Men! They are all the same! They know everything about everything, save, when it is to happen and how it can be stopped. My father was a man. I think I understand the sex.

Mrs. Jamieson:
Don't ruffle his hair! It took all night to curl it.

[Harry's father has been falsely imprisoned for attempted murder]

Harry Gregson:
Sir, he's not guilty.

Mr. Carter:
Can you vouch for his whereabouts on that night? Can you prove he was in another place? Otherwise occupied?

Harry Gregson:
He was on Lady Ludlow's land. Poaching. Six brace of pheasants, two of snipe. I helped you write it in the ledger.

Mr. Carter:
How do you know it was him?

Harry Gregson:
I was there. I was helping.

Mr. Carter:
Go home now. [Angrily] Now, Harry!

Lady Ludlow:
Poaching is next to thieving, Mr. Carter. I abhor it for that reason.

Mr. Carter:
Madam, I am convinced it was done because the man was desperate to feed his family!

Lady Ludlow:
Has he no work? Where does he live?

Mr. Carter:
He is a squatter in Hareman's Lane.

Lady Ludlow:
Then he is not, I think, a tenant of mine. I have no responsibility towards him.

Mr. Carter:
He is a tenant of this Earth, my lady.

Mr. Carter:
[to Lady Ludlow] Madam, I must hope that if you cannot help this family, God will.

Lady Ludlow:
He is guilty of poaching, nothing more.

Sir Charles Maulver:
And nothing less! I am plagued by poachers too, and they're all vagabonds. Vagabonds can be sentenced purely for their way of life. No specific crime is required. That, Lady Ludlow, is the law.

Miss Matty Jenkyns:
Love is the final word.

William Buxton:
You don't want to marry me, do you, Erminia?

Erminia Whyte:
No, I do not. I was orphaned young and went to school in Brussels. I think that I have been unfortunate enough.

William Buxton:
Have you seen the gorse?

Peggy Bell:
There was not a flower to be had. I should not have plucked it otherwise. The poor twigs look so stark. Miss Matty once told me that there was a saying... "When gorse is out of blossom, then kissing is out of fashion."

William Buxton:
This room is so warm that they mistake the month for spring. And one of them bears a single golden bud.

William Buxton to his father, "I do not exist only to thwart or please you".

Mary:
  "I have not known her long, but I think you will find her quite kindly disposed."