is very probable that he received an invitation, and
that he drove over with Mary Arden, his wife, sitting on the front seat
holding the baby, and all the other seven children sitting on the straw
behind. And we may be sure that the eldest boy in that brood never forgot
the day. In fact, in "Midsummer Night's Dream" he has called on his
memory for certain features of the show. Elizabeth was forty-one years
old then, but apparently very attractive and glib of tongue. No doubt
Kenilworth was stupendous in its magnificence, and it will pay you to
take down from its shelf Sir Walter's novel and read about it. But today
it is all a crumbling heap; ivy, rooks and daws hold the place in fee,
each pushing hard for sole possession.

It is eight miles from Warwick to Stratford by the direct road, but ten
by the river. I have walked both routes and consider the latter the
shorter.

Two miles down the river is Barford, and a mile farther is Wasperton,
with its quaint old stone church. It is a good place to rest: for nothing
is so soothing as a cool church where the dim light streams through
colored windows, and out of sight somewhere an organ softly plays. Soon
after leaving the church a rustic swain hailed me and asked for a match.
The pipe and the Virginia weed--they mean amity the world over. If I had
questions to ask, now was the time! So I asked, and Rusticus informed me
that Hampton Lucy was only a mile beyond and that Shakespeare never stole
deer at all; so I hope we shall hear no more of that libelous accusation.

"But did Shakespeare run away?" I demanded.

"Ave coorse he deed, sir; 'most all good men 'ave roon away sometime!"

And come to think of it Rusticus is right.

Most great men have at some time departed hastily without leaving orders
where to forward their mail. Indeed, it seems necessary that a man
should have "run away" at least once, in order afterward to attain
eminence. Moses, Lot, Tarquin, Pericles, Demosthenes, Saint Paul,
Shakespeare, Rousseau, Voltaire, Goldsmith, Hugo--but the list is too
long to give.

But just suppose that Shakespeare had not run away! And to whom do we owe
it that he did leave--Justice Shallow or Ann Hathaway, or both? I should
say to Ann first and His Honor second. I think if Shakespeare could write
an article for "The Ladies' Home Journal" on "Women Who Have Helped Me,"
and tell the whole truth (as no man ever will in print), he would put Ann
Hathaway first.

He signed a bo