The young people looked puzzled at this speech, but Mrs. Pitt smilingly led the way to the place their hostess designated. In a surprisingly short time the woman brought out a table (having scorned the assistance of the two boys), spread it with an immaculately clean cloth, and set thereon a very tempting loaf of brown bread and a pot of steaming tea. There was also jam, of course. While they enjoyed their meal, she stood by, her hands on her hips, and a radiant smile upon her face at the praises of her guests. Every few moments the little girl would peep out from behind the cottage, and once she almost came up to the group under the trees; but her mother, when she spied her, sent her hastily back, saying by way of an apology:--"She's all swatched, but she's only my reckling, you must know." As they rode away into the woods, the good woman stood in the middle of the road waving her table-cloth for good-by. "Wasn't she a dandy!" John burst out. "Couldn't understand what she said, though! Might just as well have been Greek!" "She certainly did have some old Warwickshire expressions!" laughed Mrs. Pitt. "I don't know when I've heard that word 'reckling.' It simply means her youngest child, who she said was all 'swatched.' That signifies being untidy, but I am sure I couldn't see the tiniest spot of dirt anywhere upon the child." Betty was rather glad when they at last jumped off their bicycles at the hotel in Leamington. "I guess I'm not used to quite such long rides as you," she said. "It has been beautiful, though, and I wouldn't have come by train for anything. I just love Warwickshire, and everything about it, especially the language, which I mean to learn while I am here." CHAPTER THIRTEEN WARWICK AND KENILWORTH CASTLES The bicycles were returned to their owner in Stratford, and Mrs. Pitt's plan was to drive to Warwick and Kenilworth the following day. Consequently it was a great disappointment at breakfast-time to see gray and threatening clouds overhead, from which rain very soon began to descend. The day was also very cold, and such a chilling wind was blowing and whistling around the corners of the hotel, that fires were lighted in all the tiny grates. "Whoever heard of such cold weather in June!" John protested, not in the best of spirits at being shut up in the house. "It's horrid, I say! Ugh! If my fur coat was here, I should put it on, and then get inside the fireplace, too." At this very dismal burst of feeling from John, Mrs. Pitt came to the rescue, suggesting a game of billiards. John brightened very considerably after this, and the remainder of the day was pleasantly spent in writing letters, playing games, and reading aloud from Scott's "Kenilworth," in preparation for the morrow's visit to that castle.