The Captain’s Kindness
The narrator, settled in Cranford for a month, has come to know the daily habits of the Brown trio intimately. Though their poverty was openly acknowledged from the start, the real discovery is the Captain’s “infinite kindness of heart,” shown in unconscious and varied ways. Because Cranford residents do not read much and are well-served, conversation turns on small events, and the Captain’s acts become the town’s chief topics of talk.
The Old Woman’s Dinner
A characteristic anecdote circulates after a slippery Sunday on which the Captain, returning from church, met a poor old woman struggling home from the bakehouse. With grave dignity, he relieved her of her baked mutton and potatoes and steered her safely along the street. The Cranford ladies at first expected him to apologise by paying a round of calls; when he did not, they decided he was ashamed. Upon his next appearance, however, he arrived jauntily, with his wig curled and his loud bass voice untouched by shame, and they concluded he had simply forgotten the incident altogether.
Miss Brown’s Illness
Through visits to Miss Pole, the narrator sees more of the Browns and learns that Miss Brown is seriously ill with a lingering, incurable complaint whose pain gives her face its uneasy, seemingly cross expression. At times the nervous irritability of her disease makes her sharp; afterward she bitterly reproaches herself, accusing her temper of being the cause of her father’s and sister’s pinched circumstances. The narrator comes to understand that her acerbity springs from a generous wish to sacrifice for them.
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