"Of course he has," replied the boy, his delicate face aglow; "and that is one of the things that has made Restham so awfully interesting. But what makes it even more thrilling to me is that the road was a Roman road too, and so was trodden by Cæsar's legions before such things as pilgrims were ever invented. Do you know, Miss Kingsnorth, I'm not tremendously keen on pilgrims myself? They seem to have made themselves so unnecessarily uncomfortable, with peas in their shoes, and hair-shirts, and things of that kind. And they were so dirty, too, and seemed to think there was some sort of virtue in not having a bath when they needed one." "And they were Papists also," added Annabel. Frank, however, treated this fault with considerable leniency. "I don't mind so much about that; you see you had to be a Papist in those days or else a heathen; and though I am nuts on heathens myself, I know that lots of people don't approve of them. Of course I don't care for the modern sort of common or garden heathens, who wear black skins instead of clothes, and are the stock-in-trade of missionaries. What I like are the dear old Greek and Roman heathens, who worshipped the gods and the heroes, and who had groves instead of churches, and vestal virgins instead of nuns." To my surprise Annabel was not at all shocked by this, as she ought to have been. But you never can tell what will shock or will not shock a thoroughly nice-minded woman. "I am glad you do not approve of nuns," was all she said, and she said it quite amiably. "Oh, I can't bear them," replied Frank; "their dresses are so hideous--just like mummy-costumes; and pilgrims, you know, were all more or less on the same lines--trying to make themselves as ugly and as uncomfortable as possible. I'll bet you anything that when they came to the top of Restham Hill they were looking down and counting their beads instead of revelling in the view of the weald and the wind over the downs, and all the rest of the open-air jolliness." Here Blathwayte gently interposed. "I think, my dear boy, that you are rather mixing up the Greek and the Roman periods. Remember they were two distinct civilizations." "But the principle was the same," retorted Frank airily; "gods and goddesses and marble temples, instead of priests and pilgrims and stuffy churches. No, Miss Kingsnorth," he added, flashing his brilliant smile on Annabel, as if it had been a searchlight, "none of your mediæval pilgrims on the Canterbury Road for me, but rather the Roman Johnnies making a bee-line for London, with the adventures of a new country shouting to them to come on. Of course they'd think that if the England south of Restham was so jolly, the England north of Restham would be ten times jollier, because the things in front always seem so much nicer than the things behind, don't you know!"