Sir Hugh had beheld his children fade away, apparently of hereditary disease, one after another in their early youth; all except the beautiful Charlotte, the pledge of a second marriage, and whose mother had died soon after giving birth to this their only child, and he was in consequence tremblingly alive to the slightest alarm of accident or illness. It was under such circumstances that Sir Hugh, in accepting the guardianship of his nephew, had learned to look upon the well-favoured Walter almost with the eye of a parent, and had set his heart upon a marriage between him and his lovely child. Under such circumstances, too, had young Shakespeare performed the piece of service we have described,--a service beyond reward (as the old knight worded it), beyond aught he had to bestow; and it was under such circumstances that the youth became an occasional visitor at Clopton Hall, where he was admitted on an equality with the inmates, and received in a manner perhaps no other circumstances would have been likely to lead to. The line drawn between persons of different condition in life was then more strictly kept, and more accurately defined than in our own day. But the good sense of Sir Hugh led him to appreciate superior attainments wherever they were to be found. The ignorance of youth proceeded, he thought, from idleness; the continuance of ignorance in manhood from pride--the pride which is less ashamed of being ignorant than of seeking instruction. At Clopton, therefore, men of worth were received, even though of low estate. CHAPTER V. A DOMESTIC PARTY IN ELIZABETH'S DAY. On the evening of the day on which the accident had happened to Charlotte Clopton, that lady, together with her father, her cousin Walter, and young Shakespeare, were assembled in an ample apartment at Clopton Hall, situate on the ground floor, the windows looking out upon the lovely pleasure-grounds in the rear of the building. The youth had spent the entire day at the hall, and in the society of those to whom he had rendered so great a service. Indeed any person (albeit he might not so well deserve consideration by this good family) would still have been a cherished guest; nay, even an "unmannered churl," under the same circumstances, would have been tolerated and made much of; but in this lad, Sir Hugh and his family found something so extraordinary, so superior, and of so amiable a disposition, that it appeared a blessing and an honour to have him as an associate beneath their roof.