aken. Mrs. Senter says that no girl can ever
possibly understand a man, and that a man is really much more
complicated than a woman, though the novelists tell you it's the other
way round.

We started out, all of us, except Emily, who lies down after tea, to
walk to John Halle's Hall, a most interesting banqueting room, which is
now a china-shop, but was built by a rich wool-stapler (such a nice
word!) in 1470, as you can see on the oak carvings. But there was so
much to do on the way, that we saw the Hall, and the old George
Inn--where Pepys lay "in a silk bed and had very good diet"--last of
all.

The antique furniture shops were simply enthralling, and I wanted nearly
everything I saw. Travelling is good for the mind, but it develops one
or two of the worst passions, such as Greed of Possession. We went into
several shops, and I could have purred with joy when Sir Lionel asked me
to help him choose several things for Graylees, which he would have sent
on there, direct. He seemed to care more for my advice than for Mrs.
Senter's, and I don't think she quite liked that, for she really knows a
good deal about old English furniture, whereas I know nothing--only a
little about French and Italian things.

The streets of Salisbury, with their mediaeval houses, look exactly as if
they had been originally planned to give the most delightful effects
possible when their pictures were taken. Every corner is a gem; and Sir
Lionel told us that the old rectangular part of the town _was_ planned
more or less at one time. Of course, the people who did the planning had
plenty of time to think it all over, before moving down from Old Sarum,
which was so high and bleak they couldn't hear the priest saying mass in
the cathedral, because of the wind. Fancy! Salisbury used to be called
the "Venice of England"; but I must say, if one can judge now, the
simile was far-fetched.

Lots of martyrs were burnt in Salisbury, it seems, when that sort of
thing was in fashion, so no wonder they have to keep Bloody Queen Mary's
chair in Winchester instead of Salisbury, where they've a right to feel
a grudge against the wretched little, bilious bigot of a lovesick woman.
Sir Lionel has several well-known martyrs on his family tree, Mrs.
Norton says; and she is as proud of them as most people are of royal
bar-sinisters. I never thought martyrs particularly interesting myself,
though perhaps that's an uneasy jealousy, as we've none in our family
that