r under the title of "Cranford,"
meeting with wide approval, and have long taken rank as one of
the accepted English classics. The town which figures here as
Cranford is understood to have been Knutsford, in Cheshire,
which still retains something of that old-world feeling and
restfulness which Mrs. Gaskell embodied in the pages of her
most engaging book. "Cranford" is probably the direct
progenitor of many latter-day books of the class to which the
word "idyll" has been somewhat loosely applied. Its charm and
freshness are unfading; it remains unique and unrivalled as a
sympathetic and kindly humorous description of English
provincial life. Mrs. Gaskell died in November, 1865.

_I.--Our Society_

On the first visit I paid to Cranford, after I had left it as a
residence, I was astonished to find a man had settled there--a Captain
Brown. In my time Cranford was in possession of the Amazons. If a
married couple came to settle there, somehow the man always disappeared.
Either he was fairly frightened to death by being the only man at the
evening parties, or he was accounted for by being with his regiment, his
ship, or closely connected in business all the week in the great
neighbouring commercial town of Drumble, distant only twenty miles on
the railroad.

I was naturally interested to learn what opinions Captain Brown had
managed to win for himself in Cranford. So, with all the delicacy which
the subject demanded, I made inquiries of my hostess, Miss Jenkyns. I
was surprised to learn that Captain Brown not only was respected, but
had even gained an extraordinary place of authority among the Cranford
ladies. Of course, he had been forced to overcome great difficulties.

In the first place, the ladies of Cranford had moaned over the invasion
of their territories by a man and a gentleman. Then Captain Brown had
started badly, very badly, by openly referring to his poverty. If he had
whispered it to an intimate friend, the doors and windows being
previously closed, his vulgarity--a tremendous word in Cranford--might
have been forgiven. But he had published his poverty in the public
street, in a loud military voice, alleging it as a reason for not taking
a particular house.

In Cranford, too, where it was tacitly agreed to ignore that anyone with
whom we associated on terms of equality could ever be prevented by
poverty from doing anything they wished. Where, if