"Supposing we sit here for a little while," suggested Philippa.

In the centre of the house the corridor widened into a square apartment
known as the Guard Room, and tradition stated that the soldiers had
here kept watch to ensure the safety of their sovereign, who had
occupied a room close by, on the occasion of her famous visit to
Bessacre High House.

The walls were panelled with oak and hung with portraits of
dead-and-gone Heathcotes. A high oriel window threw good light upon
the pictures, some of which were dark and dim with age.

Francis sat down on the window-seat and looked round him.

"Well, I can't call them a good-looking lot," he said, smiling. "What
is the name of the man in the corner there in a flowing wig, Phil? I
have forgotten all about them."

"Amyas Heathcote," read the girl. "He may not be good-looking, but he
had a pretty taste in lace if one may judge by his ruffles."

"And a pretty taste in wives," said the doctor lightly, pointing to the
picture hanging next. It represented a winsome dark-eyed woman in a
brocaded frock, wearing a muslin cap over her powdered hair.

"I think she is beautiful," exclaimed Philippa. "You wait, my darling,
until your portrait hangs here," said Francis quickly. "All the other
Heathcote wives will be put into the shade then."

"He had a pretty taste in wine too," interrupted the doctor gruffly,
"if one may judge by his complexion. I don't know anything of the
gentleman, but I'll take my oath he died of apoplexy--unless the
leeches killed him first with an over-dose of blood-letting. It seems
to have been a playful habit of those days."

"Talking of leeches," said Philippa quite composedly, "reminds me of
rather a good story I heard the other day. Only I'm speaking of the
animals, not the doctors. A friend of mine told me that a few years
ago her mother sent a linseed poultice and some leeches in a jar to a
man in the village who was ill, and the doctor had ordered them to be
applied. Some days later she visited the cottage and asked if the
remedies had done any good. 'Well,' said his wife, 'he did enjoy the
pudding, but try as he would he couldn't swallow them little fishes.'"

The doctor laughed, but his amusement struck Philippa as being a little
forced and he had begun to tug at his beard, a sure sign with him that
things were not going in the way he wished. She looked quickly at
Francis, thinking that perhaps Robert Gale's professional eye