Edward Knight's Family
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Elizabeth Austen, later Knight, continued.
'... less fuss about weddings in those days', comments Elizabeth's daughter, Caroline, 'although my father and mother were said to be the handsomest couple who ever went to church'. This statement is confirmed by their granddaughter, Evelyn, Lady Templetown, daughter of Fanny, Lady Winchilsea who wrote, 'an old shopkeeper in Dover, whose name escapes me – though I knew him well, told me that when Grandpa and Grandma first married, they were such an extraordinarily handsome couple that people used to follow them when they walked in Dover streets – and ran down side streets to meet them again!' I am sure the bride and bridegroom were quite unaware of their good looks, and Elizabeth's children just took it for granted that their mother should be as beautiful as she was in every other way perfect. I have never heard my father or my uncles or aunts dwell specially on their mother's beauty.
To return to the wedding, so quiet and simple was it in its arrangements that when the company returned to the house, the bridegroom went out shooting – and the bride with her sister Marianne, 'walked all round the chicken houses, and climbed up to the top of the cow houses to say good-bye.' This always delighted my father – who thoroughly sympathized with his mother in the proceedings; and, when a few years ago, I paid my only visit to Godmersham (then standing empty and for sale) I divided the time between wandering through the rooms where ...'
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