My father now bought a small estate between Yarmouth and Freshwater, and built a house--Heathfield--upon it, in which to spend his holidays. The Freshwater side of the Isle of Wight was not at that time a fashionable neighbourhood. The lovely, lonely bays on the blue Solent, innocent of lodging-house or bathing-machine, succeeded each other from Yarmouth to the Needles. They were approached over open land, or by little stony chines, deep in gorse and bracken, down which tiny streams trickled, to spread themselves out shiningly on the sands and melt into the sea. I remember my young mother killing a red adder in our chine with a well-aimed stone, as we came up from our morning dip in the waves. There was room for wild creatures and open country and for poetry then on the little island. The islanders, smugglers from generation to generation, had in them more of the wild creature than of poetry. Droll stories used to be told of their inability to appreciate the honour done to Freshwater by the Poet's residence there. But perhaps the days when his "greatness" was measured by the man-servant test[47] were more comfortable days for the Bard than those when his movements were marked and followed through telescopes. There was a constant coming and going between Heathfield and Farringford, the children of each house being equally at home in the other. I see now the long Farringford drawing-room, full of the green shade of a cedar tree which grew near the great window, and the slight figure of Lady Tennyson rising from the red sofa--it was a red room--and gliding towards my mother with a smile upon her lips. She always wore a soft gray cashmere gown, and it was always made in the same simple fashion; much as dresses were worn in the days of Cruikshank, only that the gathered skirt was longer and less full than the skirts of Cruikshank's ladies. Her silky auburn-brown hair, partly hidden by lace lappets, was untouched with gray, and her complexion kept its rose-leaf delicacy, just as her strong and cultivated intellect kept its alertness, to the last days of her life. No sooner were the greetings over than ten to one the door would open, and the Poet would come slowly, softly, silently, into the room, dressed in an old-fashioned black tail-coat, and fixing my mother with his distant short-sighted gaze. One day, she being seated with her back to the cedar-green window, he approached her with such extreme deference, and so solemn a courtesy, as made her all amazed; until in a minute, with a flash of amusement, both discovered that he had mistaken her for--the Queen. Still more surely one or both of the long-haired, gray-tunicked boys would appear, less silently; and away the children scampered to their endless play about the rambling house and grounds. But even the children's play was informed with the vital interest of the two houses: the story of King Arthur and his knights. The first "Idylls of the King" had appeared, and others were appearing.