We visited the principal towns and historic places of England and Scotland, Philip having a particular interest in Northamptonshire, where his father's line sprang from (Sir Ralph Winwood having been a worthy of some eminence in the reigns of Elizabeth and James),[10] and in Edinburgh, the native place of his mother. Cathedrals, churches, universities, castles, tombs of great folk, battle-fields--'twould fill a book to describe all the things and places we saw; most of which Phil knew more about than the people did who dwelt by them. From England we crossed to France, spent a fortnight in Paris, went to Rheims, thence to Strasburg, thence to Frankfort; came down the Rhine, and passed through parts of Belgium and Holland before taking vessel at Amsterdam for London. "I must leave Italy, the other German states, and the rest till another time," said Philip. It seemed as if we had been gone years instead of months, when at last we were all home again in our cottage at Hampstead. After my marriage, though Mr. Faringfield's handsome settlement would have enabled Fanny and me to live far more pretentiously, we were content to remain in the Hampstead cottage. Fanny would not hear to our living under a separate roof from that of my mother, whose constant society she had come to regard as necessary to her happiness. Philip now arranged to pursue the study of architecture in the office of a practitioner of that art; and he gave his leisure hours to the improving of his knowledge of London. He made acquaintances; passed much time in the Pall Mall taverns; and was able to pilot me about the town, and introduce me to many agreeable habitues of the coffee-houses, as if he were the elder resident of London, and I were the newcomer. And so we arrived at the Spring of 1786, and a momentous event. CHAPTER XIX. _We Meet a Play-actress There._ It was Philip's custom, at this time, to attend first nights at the playhouses, as well from a love of the theatre as from the possibility that he might thus come upon Captain Falconer. He always desired my company, which I was the readier to grant for that I should recognise the captain in any assemblage, and could point him out to Phil, who had never seen him. We took my mother and Fanny excepting when they preferred to stay at home, which was the case on a certain evening in this Spring of 1786, when we went to Drury Lane to witness the reappearance of a Miss Warren who had been practising her art the previous three years in the provinces. This long absence from London had begun before my mother and I arrived there, and consequently Philip and I had that evening the pleasurable anticipation of seeing upon the stage a much-praised face that was quite new to us. [Illustration: "IT WAS PHILIP'S CUSTOM, AT THIS TIME, TO ATTEND FIRST NIGHTS AT THE PLAYHOUSES."]