You are sorry that the old banqueting-hall should now be used for the coal-cellar and the laundry of the brethren, and still more sorry that the minstrels' gallery should have been cut off to enlarge the drawing-room of the Master's house. If you are of a rude and democratic nature you may possibly comment on this in audible voices beneath the Master's windows, which, I am sorry to say, was what Mr. Basingstoke and his companion did. You will see the Sidney porcupine on the wall of the quadrangle, some gilded quills missing, and no wonder, after all these years. You will see--and perhaps neglect to reverence, as they did--the great chair once occupied by that insufferable monarch and prig, James the First. You will visit the Brethren's Chapel, which seems to be scented by all the old clothes ever worn by any of the old brethren, and you will come out again into the street, and, as you cross the threshold, it will be like stepping across three hundred years, and you will say so. Then you will probably say, "What about Stratford for this afternoon?" At least, that is what Edward said. And as he said it he was aware of a figure in black which said, "Can you tell me the way to Droitwich?" It was a woman, spare and pale, in black that was green, but brushed to threadbareness. "Do you want to walk?" Edward asked. "I've got to, sir," she said. "Do you mind," he asked, "telling me why you want to go?" "I've got relations there, sir," said the woman in black, raising to his the plaintive blue eyes of a child set in a face that fifty years and more had wrinkled like a February apple. "My husband's relations, that is. They might do something to help me. I might be able to be of use to them, just to work out my keep. It isn't much I require. But I couldn't--" She stopped, and Edward Basingstoke knew that she couldn't even bring herself to name the great terror of the poor--the living tomb which the English call the workhouse. "I'm afraid you've had a hard time," said Mr. Basingstoke. "I had many happy days," she said, simply. "I always think you pay for everything you have, sooner or later. And I'm paying now. I don't grudge it, but I'd like to end respectable. And thank you for asking so kindly, sir, and now I'll be getting on." And he saw in her eyes the fear that he would offer her money to pay her way to Droitwich. Instead he said: "We're motoring your way this afternoon. If you'll let us give you a lift--" The woman looked from one to the other. "Well," she said, "I do call that kind. But I wasn't asking for any help. And I'd best be getting on." Then the other woman came quite close to the woman in black. "Won't you," she said, "come and have dinner with us--and then we'll drive you over? Do come. We're so happy and we do hate to think that you aren't. Perhaps we can think of some way to help you . . . find you some work or something," she added, hastily, answering the protest in the blue eyes.