Cranford

Proposal to convert Miss Matty’s dining room into a tea shop

Proposal to convert Miss Matty’s dining room into a tea shop

The narrator mentions the idea of supplementing Miss Matty’s income by selling tea. To her surprise, her father embraces the plan enthusiastically, projecting annual profits of more than twenty pounds from tea sales in Cranford. He proposes converting the small dining parlour into a refined shop: a table as counter, one window unchanged, and the other converted into a glass door, avoiding any degrading commercial appearance.

Miss Matty’s acceptance of arrangements and concerns about tea shop customers

Miss Matty’s acceptance of arrangements and concerns about tea shop customers

Miss Matty accepts the plans patiently, hoping only to pay off her father’s debts fully for his sake, and asking that no one be hurried into marriage on her account. The tea-selling proposal shocks her, not from any loss of gentility but from self-doubt about her ability to manage a new line of work. She agrees to try because her brother is insistent, but confesses she fears men customers because of their sharp, loud manners and quick way of counting change, saying she would much prefer selling comfits to children.

第十五章

Chapter XV, titled “A Happy Return,” continues the story of Miss Matty’s efforts to support herself financially after the loss of her savings. The chapter covers Mrs Jamieson’s eventual approval of Miss Matty’s tea-selling venture, the return of the newly married Mr and Mrs Hoggins (formerly Lady Glenmire) to Cranford, and the establishment and early success of Miss Matty’s little tea shop. It also introduces family developments with Martha’s pregnancy and culminates in the unexpected arrival of the Aga Jenkyns at the shop, who addresses the narrator directly by name.