‘Yes, miss, and a very nice-looking gentleman he is for anybody to look at,’ answered Mrs. Baker smirkingly, making up her mind that the tall dark-eyed gentleman must belong to one or other of the two young ladies. ‘He may be nice to the outward eye,’ said Daphne gravely, ‘but he is dust and ashes inside. He is anathema maranatha, or he ought to be, if there were anybody in Warwickshire who knew how to anathematise him properly. He lives in this county—within twelve miles of this house—and he has never been to see the ingle-nook where Shakespeare courted his wife. I’m afraid it won’t make the faintest impression upon his callous mind when I tell him that you are a lineal descendant of the Hathaways, and that this house has never been out of a Hathaway’s possession since Shakespeare’s time.’ ‘I appreciate the lady for her own sake, and don’t care a jot for her ancestry,’ answered Gerald, with a friendly air. They followed Mrs. Baker into the house-place, where all was cool and shadowy after the glare of sunshine outside. It was a low but somewhat spacious room, with casements looking back and front; recessed casements, furnished with oaken seats, one of which was known as the lovers’ seat; for here, the lovers of the present day argued by analogy, William and Ann must have sat to watch many a sunset, and many a moonlit sky. Here they must have whispered their foolish lovers’ talk in the twilight, and shyly kissed at parting. The fire-place was in a deep recess, a roomy ingle-nook where half-a-dozen people could have gathered comfortably round the broad open hearth. On one side of the ingle-nook was a cupboard in the wall, known as the bacon-cupboard; on the other the high-backed settle. Opposite the fire-place there was a noble old dresser—polished oak or mahogany—with turned legs and a good deal of elaborate carpentry: a dresser which was supposed to be Elizabethan, but which was suggestive rather of the Carolian period. The dark brown panels made an effective background for an old willow dinner-service. Daphne made Mr. Goring explore every inch of the house which Mrs. Baker was able conveniently to show. She led him up a breakneck little staircase, showed him lintels and doorposts, and locks and bolts, which had been extant in Shakespeare’s time; made him admire the queer little carved four-poster which was even older than the poet’s epoch; and the old fine linen sheet, richly worked by patient fingers, which had been in the family for centuries, only used at a birth or a death. She excused him from nothing; and he bore the infliction with calm resignation, and allowed her to lead him back to the house-place in triumph. Madoline and Edgar Turchill were sitting in the lovers’ seat, talking, after having unpacked the basket, and made all preparation for tea, assisted by Mrs. Baker’s modest handmaiden.