The scene of _Sylvia's Lovers_ is laid in Whitby, at a time when the press-gang was kidnapping men for the British navy. It is a story of the loves, jealousies, and sorrows of sailors, shopkeepers, and small farmers, among whom Sylvia moves as the central figure. Du Maurier, who illustrated the second edition of this novel, was so charmed with the heroine that he named his daughter Sylvia for her. This story, like _Ruth_, has much of the sentimentalism so fashionable in the middle of the nineteenth century. The leading canon of criticism at that time was the power with which a writer could move the emotions of the reader, and the novelist was expected either to convulse his readers with laughter or dissolve them into tears. There are many funny scenes in _Sylvia's Lovers_, but the key-note is pathos. Like many novels of Dickens, there are death-bed scenes introduced only for the luxury of weeping over sorrows that are not real, and there are melodramatic situations as in her other books. Parts of this novel suggested to Tennyson the poem of _Enoch Arden_. But, however powerful may be the novels dealing with the questions that daily confront the poor, there is a perennial charm in the society of people who dwell amid rural scenes. Mrs. Gaskell has written several short stories of the pastoral type. Such a story is _Cousin Phillis_. It is a beautiful idyl and reminds one of the old pastorals in which ladies and gentlemen played at shepherds and shepherdesses. Cousin Phillis cooks, irons, reads Dante, helps the haymakers, falls in love, and mends a broken heart, and is brave, true, and unselfish. Her father is what one would expect from such a daughter. He cultivates his small farm, finds rest from his labours in reading, and neglects none of the many duties which belong to him as the dissenting minister of a small village. _Cranford_ and _Wives and Daughters_ have this in common, that the scene of both is laid in the village of Knutsford. The former is a rambling story of events in two or three households, and of the social affairs in which all the village is concerned. It is without doubt the favourite of Mrs. Gaskell's novels. _Wives and Daughters_ was Mrs. Gaskell's last story, and was left unfinished at her death. It shows a great artistic advance over her earlier work. The plot is more natural; it has not so many sharp contrasts, which George Eliot criticised in Mrs. Gaskell's stories. The characters are also more subtle. Molly, the daughter of the village doctor, is an unselfish, thoughtful girl, but with none of that unreal goodness which Dickens sometimes gave to his heroines. When she receives her first invitation to a child's party, and her father is wondering whether or not she can go, her speech is characteristic of her nature: "Please, Papa,--I do wish to go--but I don't care about it."