16Aug1865, Unpolished Ways Preferred to Semi-Gentility

BOLTON, August 16th, 1865.
—Lou and I did not go up to the moors, but paid visits to 10 cottages : the folk at Halton most pleasant, attractive people, their nice unpolished ways a good deal more to my taste than Worcestersh. propriety and semi-gentility. One poor old, old man cannot at all get over the death of his wife in the spring, and sobbed piteously at the sight of Lou who took me to see them both last August. They had been married above 50 years.