The
American had the sense to see that she was herself one of the
most intelligent and sympathetic women in England; her sister,
Miss Charlotte Wynn, was another; and both were of an age and a
position in society that made their friendship a complirnent as
well as a pleasure. Their consent and approval settled the
matter. In England, the family is a serious fact; once admitted
to it, one is there for life. London might utterly vanish from
one's horizon, but as long as life lasted, Yorkshire lived for
its friends.
In the year 1857, Mr. James Milnes Gaskell, who had sat for
thirty years in Parliament as one of the Members for the borough
of Wenlock in Shropshire, bought Wenlock Abbey and the estate
that included the old monastic buildings. This new, or old,
plaything amused Mrs. Milnes Gaskell. The Prior's house, a
charming specimen of fifteenth-century architecture, had been
long left to decay as a farmhouse. She put it in order, and went
there to spend a part of the autumn of 1864. Young Adams was one
of her first guests, and drove about Wenlock Edge and the Wrekin
with her, learning the loveliness of this exquisite country, and
its stores of curious antiquity. It was a new and charming
existence; an experience greatly to be envied -- ideal repose and
rural Shakespearian peace -- but a few years of it were likely to
complete his education, and fit him to act a fairly useful part
in life as an Englishman, an ecclesiastic, and a contemporary of
Chaucer.
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