larly picturesque and well-wooded country. Madrasia, fresh from the almost treeless slopes of the Cheviots, was immediately in raptures with it. Already the trees were in leaf, the wide-spreading meadows were covered with fresh green, and in the vistas of woodland through which we passed daffodils and wood anemones made splashes of colour against the bursting verdure. New to her, too, were the quaint thatched cottages, many of them half-timbered, and all ancient, by the roadside.
"It's like the old England that one sees in pictures!" she exclaimed. "It's as if we'd gone back!"
"We have gone back," said Parslewe, with one of his queer, grim looks. "Back to Elizabeth! There's not much that's altered hereabouts since Shakespeare's time—neither houses nor men. And if you're going to develop a taste for mediævalism, my dear, you'll soon be satisfied—we're presently going to set foot in a house that's as old as they make 'em."
But before this came about the carriage stopped at a wayside cottage, and Parslewe,
