Cousin Phillis

I knew I must go down to dinner; I knew, too, I must tell Phillis; for in his happy egotism, his new-fangled foppery, Holdsworth had put in a P.S., saying that he should send wedding-cards to me and some other Hornby and Eltham acquaintances, and "to his kind friends at Hope Farm". Phillis had faded away to one among several "kind friends".

Courtship by implication, foreign marriage by postscript, and Phillis's fading into 'kind friends' make a complete plot of quiet betrayal — so plot scores 85.

I read and read, unregardful of the words I was uttering, thinking of all manner of other things; of the bright colour of Phillis’s hair, as the afternoon sun fell on her bending head; of the silence of the house, which enabled me to hear the double tick of the old clock which stood half-way up the stairs.

Paul narrates Phillis into light and clock-silence — cousin, minister's daughter, and Holdsworth held in one attentive gaze — so cast scores 88.

It is a great thing for a lad when he is first turned into the independence of lodgings. I do not think I ever was so satisfied and proud in my life as when, at seventeen, I sate down in a little three-cornered room above a pastry-cook’s shop in the county town of Eltham.

Four Parts stretch lodgings pride into farm Sundays before crisis; novella refuses serial shock — so pace scores 86.

of the bright colour of Phillis’s hair, as the afternoon sun fell on her bending head; of the silence of the house, which enabled me to hear the double tick of the old clock which stood half-way up the stairs; of the variety of inarticulate noises which cousin Holman made while I read.

Sun on hair and double-tick clock are Gaskell's late pastoral at its most exact — so prose scores 90.

I was to be a clerk under the engineer who had undertaken to make the little branch line from Eltham to Hornby. My father had got me this situation, which was in a position rather above his own in life; or perhaps I should say, above the station in which he was born and bred.

Branch line, Hope Farm, and Independent chapel place rural piety against railway modernity without Manchester smoke — so world scores 87.

It is a great thing for a lad when he is first turned into the independence of lodgings. I do not think I ever was so satisfied and proud in my life as when, at seventeen, I sate down in a little three-cornered room above a pastry-cook’s shop in the county town of Eltham.

Seventeen-year-old lodging pride hooks before cousin or romance — autonomy as first pleasure — so hook scores 87.

Holdsworth had put in a P.S., saying that he should send wedding-cards to me and some other Hornby and Eltham acquaintances, and "to his kind friends at Hope Farm". Phillis had faded away to one among several "kind friends".

The railway man's charm ends as a postal slight — industrial modernity as epistolary cruelty rather than strike fiction — so innov scores 86.

“Now, Phillis!” said she, coming up to the sofa; “we ha’ done a’ we can for you, and th’ doctors has done a’ they can for you, and I think the Lord has done a’ He can for you, and more than you deserve, too, if you don’t do something for yourself.” … “Only for a short time, Paul. Then—we will go back to the peace of the old days. I know we shall; I can, and I will!”

Servant sermon plus Phillis's chosen convalescence close without marriage plot recovery — agency over restitution — so ending scores 88.