y, the children started up to bed, Betty,
enthusiastic at the prospect of a high four-poster, which "you really
have to run and give a jump to get into." She and Barbara did not
stay long awake to enjoy it, however, for it seemed as though their
heads had hardly touched the pillows before the maid was calling them,
and the bright sun was pouring in at the windows.

Very early they set out to walk "across the fields to Anne." The
little village of Shottery, where stands the cottage known all the
world over as "Anne Hathaway's," is only about a mile distant from
Stratford, and our party gayly took the path through the
fields,--perhaps the very one over which Shakespeare trod when he was
Anne's lover. This led them first past the "back-yards" of Stratford,
then over a stile and through the green meadows, where daisies and
cowslips abound. As they went along, Mrs. Pitt repeated to them the
following little verse from Shakespeare's "Winter's Tale":

"Jog on, jog on, the footpath way,
And merrily hent the stile-a;
A merry heart goes all the way,
Your sad tires in a mile-a."

The boys learned this, and half-chanted, half-sang it over and over
while they all kept time to the rhythm.

"There's Shottery, I guess!" Betty called, interrupting the singers,
as she caught sight of a pretty little group of thatched-roofed
cottages. "It seems a very short 'mile-a,' doesn't it!"

Anne Hathaway's cottage is even more picturesque than its neighbors,
or does this only seem so because of the associations which it has for
all? Every one knows the picture of the cottage. One end stands close
to the country road, and in front of it, behind a green hedge, is the
garden. Growing on the cottage walls are at least half a dozen
different kinds of roses, as well as honeysuckle and jasmine, which
clamber way up and mingle with the heavy thatch. The old
casement-windows with their thick panes of glass were swung open to
let in the morning's fresh air. A young girl dressed in pink and
carrying a broom, appeared on the doorstep as Philip opened the gate.
She was evidently rather surprised to see such early visitors, but she
said they might go in. While Mrs. Pitt paused to speak with her,
Betty, who had already rushed inside, called out: "Here's the old
settle! I know it from its pictures!"

Sure enough, there it was, close beside the great fireplace,--we hope
just where it has always been ever since Anne Hathaway and
Shakespe