James Crawley's Pipe Is Put Out

The amiable behaviour of Mr. Crawley, and Lady Jane's kind reception of
her, highly flattered Miss Briggs, who was enabled to speak a good word
for the latter, after the cards of the Southdown family had been
presented to Miss Crawley. A Countess's card left personally too for
her, Briggs, was not a little pleasing to the poor friendless
companion. "What could Lady Southdown mean by leaving a card upon you,
I wonder, Miss Briggs?" said the republican Miss Crawley; upon which
the companion meekly said "that she hoped there could be no harm in a
lady of rank taking notice of a poor gentlewoman," and she put away
this card in her work-box amongst her most cherished personal
treasures. Furthermore, Miss Briggs explained how she had met Mr.
Crawley walking with his cousin and long affianced bride the day
before: and she told how kind and gentle-looking the lady was, and
what a plain, not to say common, dress she had, all the articles of
which, from the bonnet down to the boots, she described and estimated
with female accuracy.

Miss Crawley allowed Briggs to prattle on without interrupting her too
much. As she got well, she was pining for society. Mr. Creamer, her
medical man, would not hear of her returning to her old haunts and
dissipation in London. The old spinster was too glad to find any
companionship at Brighton, and not only were the cards acknowledged the
very next day, but Pitt Crawley was graciously invited to come and see
his aunt. He came, bringing with him Lady Southdown and her daughter.
The dowager did not say a word about the state of Miss Crawley's soul;
but talked with much discretion about the weather: about the war and
the downfall of the monster Bonaparte: and above all, about doctors,
quacks, and the particular merits of Dr. Podgers, whom she then
patronised.