Cranford

were almost all Mrs. Gaskell’s books. But when tired or overdone she
used often to return to Knutsford for rest and for refreshment.
Sometimes in later life she stayed with her cousins, the Miss Hollands,
whose traditions she wove into shape, together with the quaint conceits
and stories which are still told in Knutsford. It has its customs and
oddities now, just as when Mrs. Gaskell was a girl. I am told that the
streets are sanded on certain days in pretty patterns all along the
pavement; there are temperance processions in which the immortal sedan
chair still figures, and I myself observed that some of the humbler
bonnets formed quite an important feature in the scene, while
recollections of Miss Matty’s successive caps seemed to float across
one’s mind. It was delightful to hear the people of Knutsford still
speak of Mrs. Gaskell, and of the pleasure her visits always brought,
and the pleasure she always took in them; of her long country drives
with an old friend, a doctor, going his rounds, twenty and thirty miles
at a time; of her talk and interest in all the details along the way.
She loved country things and farming things; she always kept her cow,
even in Manchester; she understood the practical facts of life as well