The Great Lama Rumor
Among the various reports about Peter is an absurd story that he was elected Great Lama of Thibet. The ladies dispute whether llamas are carnivorous animals, and Mrs Forrester confesses she habitually confuses carnivorous with graminivorous, just as she does horizontal and perpendicular.
The Scant Intelligence
The only solid fact gleaned from conversation is that Peter was last heard of in India or that neighbourhood. This meagre intelligence reached Cranford in a year marked by Miss Pole’s purchase of an Indian muslin gown, Wombwell’s circus (when Miss Matty wanted to see an elephant to imagine Peter riding one), and Miss Jenkyns’s recitation of poetry about surveying mankind from China to Peru.
The Parlour Scene
One March morning, Miss Matty sits in her blue chintz easy-chair knitting while the narrator reads aloud from the St James’s Chronicle. They are preparing to receive callers when a knock announces Miss Pole, who arrives breathless with news too astounding for words.
Miss Pole’s Visit
Miss Pole arrests their preparations by calling out that she cannot wait, and despite their genteel attempts to appear unhurried, she signals her extraordinary news by lifting her hands in amazement and bringing them down in pantomime, unable to speak.
The Engagement News
Miss Pole delivers the astonishing announcement: Lady Glenmire is to marry Mr Hoggins. Both Miss Matty and the narrator exclaim in disbelief, while Miss Pole declares she called it madness in a public shop where feminine delicacy had been shamefully absent.
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