crammed the children, and given old Mrs. Clayton a
catalogue raisonnee of all the company and all their dresses, and a
bill of fare of our luncheon and dinner, and where everything came
from.'

'And yet you profess to hold gossip in abomination,' said Anne.

'Oh! but this is old gossip, regular legitimate amusement for the poor
old lady,' said Elizabeth. 'She really is a lady, but very badly off,
and most of the Abbeychurch gentility are too fine to visit her, so
that a little quiet chat with her is by no means of the common-place
kind. Besides, she knows and loves us all like her own children. It
was one of the first pleasures I can remember, to gather roses for her,
and carry them to her from her own old garden here.'

'Well, in consideration of all that you say,' said Anne, 'I suppose I
must forgive her for keeping you away all this afternoon.'

'And what did you do all that time?' said Elizabeth. 'Have you read
Hereward, and do not you delight in him?'

'Yes,' said Anne, 'and I want to know whether he is not the father of
Cedric of Rotherwood.'

'He must have been his grandfather,' said Elizabeth; 'Cedric lived a
hundred years after.'

'But Cedric remembered Torquilstone before the Normans came,' said Anne.

'No, no, he could not, though he had been told what it had been before
Front-de-Boeuf altered it,' said Elizabeth.

'And old Ulrica was there when Front-de-Boeuf's father took it,' said
Anne.

'I cannot tell how long a hag may live,' said Elizabeth, 'but she could
not have been less than a hundred and thirty years old in the time of
Richard Coeur-de-Lion.'

'Coeur-de-Lion came to the throne in 1189,' said Anne. 'No, I suppose
Torquil Wolfganger could not have been dispossessed immediately after
the Conquest. But then you know Ulrica calls Cedric the son of the
great Hereward.'

'Her wits were a little out of order,' said Elizabeth; 'either she
meant his grandson, or Sir Walter Scott made as great an anachronism as
when he made that same Ulrica compare Rebecca's skin to paper. If she
had said parchment, it would not have been such a compliment.'

'How much interest Ivanhoe makes us take in the Saxons and Normans!'
said Anne.

'And what nonsense it is to say that works of fiction give a distaste
for history,' said Elizabeth.

'You are an instance to the contrary,' said Anne; 'no one loves stories
so well, and no one loves history better.'

'I believe such stories as Ivanhoe were what t