# A Love Affair of Long Ago explained — Cranford > Chapter companion for Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell. ## What happens After Miss Jenkyns's death, the narrator returns to Cranford and stays with Miss Pole and then Miss Matty. Miss Matty, now called Matilda, is grieving and anxious. The narrator hears of a past love affair between Miss Matty and Mr. Holbrook, who unexpectedly meets her again in a shop after many years. The chapter also details the difficulties with servants and the strict domestic routines Miss Matty maintains in honor of her sister. ## Themes in this chapter ### Love and Marriage The central story of Miss Matty's past love affair with Mr. Holbrook and their unexpected reunion after decades. ### Change vs. Tradition Miss Matty struggles to maintain her sister's strict domestic traditions even after her death, showing resistance to change. ### Death and Mortality Miss Jenkyns's death shapes the chapter, with Miss Matty's grief and the community's adjustment to her absence. ## Character check-ins ### Miss Matty Jenkyns Grieving her sister's death, insists on being called Matilda, re-encounters her old love Mr. Holbrook. ### Mary Smith Visits Cranford, stays with Miss Pole and then Miss Matty, observes the reunion with Mr. Holbrook. ### Miss Pole Hosts the narrator and tells the story of Miss Matty's past love affair with Mr. Holbrook. ### Miss Deborah Jenkyns Recently deceased; her presence is still felt in the household routines and Miss Matty's grief. ### Thomas Holbrook Miss Matty's former suitor, now an elderly man, who meets her again in a shop after decades. ### Mrs. Jamieson Mentioned as the inert and fat leader of Cranford society after Miss Jenkyns's death. ## Key lines > I thought that probably my connection with Cranford would cease after Miss Jenkyns's death; at least, that it would have to be kept up by correspondence, which bears much the same relation to personal intercourse that the books of dried plants I sometimes see (Hortus Siccus, I think they call the thing) do to the living and fresh flowers in the lines and meadows. The narrator assumed her visits to Cranford would end with Miss Jenkyns's death, or at least be reduced to letters, which she compares to dried plant collections versus real flowers. _The narrator reflects on the diminished connection after Miss Jenkyns's death._ > My dear, I'd rather you did not call me Matty. She did not like it; but I did many a thing she did not like, I'm afraid—and now she's gone! If you please, my love, will you call me Matilda? Miss Matty asks the narrator to call her Matilda instead of Matty, because her sister disliked the nickname, and she now regrets not having always obeyed her. _Miss Matty's request shows her grief and deference to her sister's memory._ > He must be about seventy, I think, my dear, said Miss Pole, blowing up my castle, as if by gunpowder, into small fragments. Miss Pole reveals that Mr. Holbrook is about seventy, shattering the narrator's romantic notions about the love affair. _The narrator's romantic imagination is deflated by the reality of Mr. Holbrook's age._ ## Links - HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/cranford_se/chapters/iii-a-love-affair-of-long-ago - Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/cranford_se - All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/cranford_se/chapters