From _Cousin Phillis_, first published as a serial in the
_Cornhill Magazine_ from November, 1863, to February, 1864,
and afterwards issued in book form in 1865. This exquisite
prose idyll represents Mrs. Gaskell’s best work, and has
been described as “a gem without a flaw”; as a short story
it is certainly a model. The breath of the open country is
ever around it. The places so graphically described are
associated with Mrs. Gaskell’s maternal grandfather’s farm at
Sandlebridge, near Knutsford.