She described The Tailor of Gloucester as her own favourite among her books. It was based on the true story of a tailor who once left the unsewn pieces of a coat in his shop and then found that the garment had been mysteriously finished for him in the night. Although it turned out that the real tailor's assistants were his apprentices, in Beatrix Potter's version of the story the secret helpers are skilful little brown mice who save the kind-hearted tailor from disaster.
