'Yes,' said Elizabeth, '"we are free to sport and play;" I have read to the old woman, and 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 taught me to like history,' said Elizabeth.
'In order to find out the anachronisms in them?' said Anne; 'I think it is very ungrateful of you.'
'No indeed,' said Elizabeth; 'why, they used to be the only history I knew, and almost the only geography. Do not you remember Aunt Anne's laughing at me for arguing that Bohemia was on the Baltic, because Perdita was left on its coast? And now, I believe that Coeur de Lion feasted with Robin Hood and his merry men, although history tells me that he disliked and despised the English, and the only sentence of their language history records of his uttering was, "He speaks like a fool Briton." I believe that Queen Margaret of Anjou haunted the scenes of grandeur that once were hers, and that she lived to see the fall of Charles of Burgundy, and die when her last hope failed her, though I know that it was not so.'
'Then I do not quite see how such stories have taught you to like history,' said Anne.
'They teach us to realize and understand the people whom we find in history,' said Elizabeth.
'Oh yes,' said Anne; 'who would care for Louis the eleventh if it was not for Quentin Durward? and Shakespeare makes us feel as if we had been at the battle of Shrewsbury.'
'Yes,' said Elizabeth; 'and they have done even more for history. They have taught us to imagine other heroes whom they have not mentioned. Cannot you see the Black Prince, his slight graceful figure, his fair delicate face full of gentleness and kindness- fierce warrior as he is-his black steel helmet, and tippet of chain- mail, his clustering white plume, his surcoat with England's leopards and France's lilies? Cannot you make a story of his long constant attachment to his beautiful cousin, the Fair Maid of Kent? Cannot you imagine his courteous conference with Bertrand du Guesclin, the brave ugly Breton?-Edward lying almost helpless on his couch, broken down with suffering and disappointment, and the noble affectionate Captal de Buch, who died of grief for him, thinking whether he will ever be able to wear his black armour again, and carry terror and dismay to the stoutest hearts of France.'
'Give Froissart some of the credit of your picture,' said Anne.
