I found the venerable antiquary in his lodging. He lived--it was the year before he died--with his old wife, a childless pair, in a house over against the Church of St. Andrew Undershaft, in the street called St. Mary Axe. The house itself was modest, containing two rooms on the ground-floor, and one large room, or solar, as it would have been called in olden time, above. There was a garden at the back, and behind the garden stood the ruins of St. Helen's Nunnery, with the grounds and gardens of that once famous house, which had passed into the possession of the Leathersellers' Company. This open space afforded freedom and sweetness for the air, which doubtless conduced to the antiquary's length of days. Outside the door I found, sitting in an arm-chair, Mistress Stow, an ancient dame. She had knitting in her lap, and she was fast asleep, the day being fine and warm, with a hot sun in the heavens, and a soft wind from the south. Without asking her leave, therefore, I passed within, and mounting a steep, narrow stair, found myself in the library and in the presence of John Stow himself. The place was a long room, lofty in the middle, but with sloping sides. It was lit by two dormer windows; neither carpet nor arras, nor hangings of any kind, adorned the room, which was filled, so that it was difficult to turn about in it, with books, papers, parchments, and rolls. They lay piled on the floor; they stood in lines and columns against the walls; they were heaped upon the table; they lay at the right hand of the chair ready for use; they were everywhere. I observed, too, that they were not such books as may be seen in a great man's library, bound after the Italian fashion, with costly leather, gilt letters, golden clasps, and silken strings. Not so. These books were old folios for the most part; the backs were broken; the leaves, where any lay open, were discolored; many of them were in the Gothic black letter. On the table were paper, pens, and ink, and in the straight-backed arm-chair sat the old man himself, pen in hand, laboriously bending over a huge tome from which he was making extracts. He wore a black silk cap; his long white hair fell down upon his shoulders. The casements of the windows stood wide open, and through one of them, which looked to the south, the summer sunshine poured warm and bright upon the old scholar's head, and upon the table at which he sat. When I entered the room he looked up, rose, and bowed courteously. His figure was tall and spare; his shoulders were rounded by much bending over books; his face was scored with the lines and wrinkles of old age; his eyes were clear and keen; but his aspect was kindly; his speech was soft and gentle. "Sir," he said, "you are welcome. I had never expected or looked to converse in the flesh, or in the spirit--I know not which this visit may be called--with one from after generations; from our children and grandchildren. May I ask to which generation--"