"The Proposal."

Published shortly after Bates's death, this tale continues his entertaining tales of Miss Shuttleworth begun with "The Song of the Wren" and "Oh! Sweeter than the Berry."

Unlike the previous tales, where Bates utilized Miss Shuttleworth in gentle parodies, here she receives a hint of a marriage proposal from a shy and bumbling retired professor; flattered, she plans to make raspberry jam -- which she abhors but which the professor adores. In a very late essay ("H.E. Bates — By Himself") Bates says about Miss Shuttleworth that "in an over-stuffy world she is as refreshing as a breath of March wind."

In the Daily Telegraph Magazine (April 5, 1974), The Yellow Meads of Asphodel (1976).