in the meads that Guy populated with romantic figures of
the mid-Victorian days. On this stile Swinburne may have sat; here
Burne-Jones may have looked back at the sky; and surely it were
reasonable to suppose that Rossetti might have tied up his shoe on this
big stone by this brook, even as Guy was tying up his shoe now. Soon
they saw a group of elms and the smoke of clustered chimneys; there
golden-gray in front of them stood Ladingford Manor.

"There's the sort of stillness of fame about it," Guy whispered.

He wondered if Mrs. Lambert would now resemble at all the famous
pictures of her he had seen. And would she talk familiarly of the
famous people she had known? They came to the gate, entering the garden
along a flagged path on either side of which runnels flowed between
borders of trim box. Mrs. Lambert was sitting in a yew parlor under a
blue-silk umbrella that was almost a pavilion, and she received them
with many comments upon the energy of walking so far on this hot
afternoon.

"You would like some beer, I'm sure. There is a bell in that
mulberry-tree. If you toll the bell Charlotte will bring you beer."

Guy tolled the bell, and Charlotte arrived with a pewter tray and pewter
mugs of beer. Margaret would not be thirsty, but Pauline was afraid of
hurting Mrs. Lambert's feelings, and she pretended to drink, lancing
blue eyes at Guy over the rim of her mug.

"It's home-brewed beer," said Mrs. Lambert, placidly, and then she
leaned back and sighed at the dome of her blue-silk umbrella. She was
still very beautiful, and Guy had a sensation that he was sitting at the
feet of Helen or Lady Flora the lovely Roman. She was old now, but she
wore about her like an aureole the dignity of all those inspirations of
famous dead painters.

"Home-brewed beer," Mrs. Lambert repeated, dreamily, and seemed to fall
asleep in the past; while in the bee-drowsed yew parlor Pauline,
Margaret, and Guy sat watching her. The throat of Sidonia the sorceress
was hers; the heavy lids of Hipparchia were hers; the wrist of
Ermengarde or Queen Blanche was hers; and the pewter tray on the grass
at her feet held Circe's wine.

Then Mrs. Lambert woke up and asked if they would like to see the house.

"Toll the bell in the mulberry-tree, and Charlotte will come. You must
excuse my getting up."

They followed Charlotte round the rooms of Ladingford Manor. There on
the walls were the tapestries that had inspired John Lambert, and there