aught 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.

'Froissart is in some places like Sir Walter himself,' said Elizabeth;
'but now I will tell you of a person who lived in no days of romance,
and has not had the advantage of a poetical historian to light him up
in our imagination. I mean the great P