e bit of ground we're passing over now has a history that dates
right back to the Middle Ages. It's a wonderful corner of England, and
so unspoilt. Half of the houses look as if they'd stepped straight out
of an artist's canvas."

For the next few days the party lived with guidebooks in their hands.
They thoroughly explored Kenilworth Castle, tried to call up a vision of
the pageant that was presented before Queen Elizabeth there, and
deplored the tragic fate of poor Amy Robsart. Then the car splashed
through the ford at the foot of the wood, and carried them along the
Warwick Road, past Blacklow Hill, where Piers Gaveston was executed, and
where, it is said, his restless spirit still rides at drear midnight, to
Guy's Cliff, with its old Saxon mill and romantic view of the Avon.
Then on to Warwick, to look at the treasures of a castle fortunately
untouched by the ravages of war, and the beautiful Beauchamp Chapel,
with its tomb of the "King Maker". They could have stayed a long time in
ancient, picturesque Warwick, admiring the quaint, old houses and the
smooth stretches of the river, but the attractions of Stratford lay only
eight miles away, and they had booked their rooms in advance at the
hotel there. None of them ever forgot their first entry into
Shakespeare's town. It was the season of his anniversary, and in his
honour flags decorated the black-and-white houses, and dainty little
maidens, with May garlands of flowers, came tripping down the
sixteenth-century streets. Our pilgrims did their devoirs in orthodox
fashion, beginning with Shakespeare's birthplace and its museum of
relics, going on to the Grammar School where he learned his "little
Latin and less Greek", to the remains of his house "New Place", and his
tomb and monument in the glorious old church. They could hardly tear
themselves away from Anne Hathaway's thatched, half-timber cottage at
Shottery, with its carved, four-post Elizabethan bedstead, its garden
full of rustic flowers, and its ingle-nook where perhaps Shakespeare sat
to woo.

"If we could only take it just as it is, and carry it out to America,"
sighed Diana.

"But it would be nothing without its surroundings," said Loveday. "It's
because Shakespeare seems associated with every corner of Stratford that
the whole place is so fascinating. Wherever you go you feel as if you
were following him round. I'd like to spend a month here, and do each
separate spot leisurely and quietly."

If the