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Good evening and welcome to the sleepy bookshaft,

where we put down our worries from the day and pick up a good book.

I'm your host, Elizabeth. Thank you for coming to the bookshelf tonight.

This evening we are returning to Cranford.

But before that, let's take some time here to unwind and relax. Take a big stretch now where you are and release all that tension from your muscles that you've

been carrying around today. Now inhale through your nose for a count of four, and out through your mouth for a count of eight.

Breathing in for one two three four

and now out for one two three four five three, four, five, six, seven, eight.

Slowing down our breathing like this with a long slow exhale helps to calm your nervous system.

That's why it makes us feel so much more peaceful.

Continue to practice this breath if you'd like while I recap our last episode.

Mr Holtz recap our last episode. Mr Holbrook invited the women to his home on a June day. It was a

simple bachelor's cottage with a housekeeper and some beautifully kept gardens.

His parlour was filled with books and he loved to quote poetry appropriate to how he was feeling or something he was seeing.

He had kept very traditional in his routines and habits, which Miss Matty seemed to approve highly of.

He came to call on Miss Matty some days later to give her one of the books of poetry he had read aloud that she seemed to have liked, while announcing he was taking a visit to Paris. Some weeks later, Martha wrote that her mistress had fallen quite ill and was refusing to eat.

On arrival, Martha also complained of having to turn her own suitors away because of the promise she made to Miss

Matti to not have any followers. Miss Paul admitted that her cousin Mr Holbrook was on his deathbed and blamed his trip to Paris for making him ill.

...