, are remnants of that splendid woodland which is so
familiar to us through Shakespeare. It was surely in just such a scene
that Titania and the other fairies danced, and where Snug, Bottom,
Flute, Snout, and the rest came to practice their play,--those
so-called Athenians, who were so exactly like Stratford tradesmen of
Shakespeare's day. Certainly it was under just such trees that Hermia,
and Helena, Lysander, and Demetrius wandered!

"And see there where those branches touch the water," she soon
continued; "might not that have been the very place where poor Ophelia
lost her life? Listen!

'There is a willow grows aslant a brook,
That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream;'

Isn't that a perfect description of this very spot? And then:

'I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows,
Where oxslips and the nodding violet grows,--'

Just see the violets all about us here! There are the 'pale
cowslips,' too! Do you see? Oh, it's wonderful,--wonderful to find so
many of the very flowers which Shakespeare loved and talked of so
much!--the daisy, the musk-rose and woodbine! There's some right by
your foot, Betty. But come, come, we really must go now! We'll go back
by the field above, where it is not so steep and dark. Come, John!"

So they hurriedly retraced their steps toward the town. In skirting
the fields on the hill-top, they once had to pick their way with some
difficulty through holes in bristling hedges, and Mrs. Pitt and the
girls were forced to run away from a buck, but these were little
incidents to which they were all quite equal, and they arrived at the
Red Horse Hotel, nothing daunted, just as the dinner-gong sounded
loudly.

CHAPTER TWELVE

A DAY IN WARWICKSHIRE

Betty did spend the evening "writing letters in Washington Irving's
room at the Red Horse," as she had planned. It was in that quaint,
tiny parlor that Irving wrote his well-known paper about
Stratford-on-Avon, and perhaps Betty hoped to benefit by the literary
atmosphere. At any rate, the letters were accomplished with great ease
and rapidity, after her curiosity had been satisfied by an examination
of the room.

Washington Irving's armchair is there, and the old poker with which he
is said to have tended the fire. On the walls hang the pictures of a
number of actors and actresses who have played Shakespearean parts.
Except for these, the room differs very little from the rest of the
inn. About nine-thirt