laintively, beneath the drooping
leafage of those grand old trees, some of which may have stretched their
branches in shadowy benediction over the sacred head of the grandest
poet in the world. Why travel to Athens,--why wander among the Ionian
Isles for love of the classic ground? Surely, though the clear-brained
old Greeks were the founders of all noble literature, they have reached
their fulminating point in the English Shakespeare,--and the
Warwickshire lanes, decked simply with hawthorn and sweet-briar roses,
through which Mary Arden walked leading her boy-angel by the hand, are
sacred as any portion of that earth once trodden by the feet of Homer
and Plato.

So, at least, Thelma thought, when, released from the bondage of London
social life, she found herself once more at Errington Manor, then
looking its loveliest, surrounded with a green girdle of oak and beech,
and set off by the beauty of velvety lawns and terraces, and
rose-gardens in full bloom. The depression from which she had suffered
fell away from her completely--she grew light-hearted as a child, and
flitted from room to room, singing to herself for pure gladness. Philip
was with her all day now, save for a couple of hours in the forenoon
which he devoted to letter-writing in connection with his Parliamentary
aspirations,--and Philip was tender, adoring and passionate as lovers
may be, but as husbands seldom are. They took long walks together
through the woods,--they often rambled across the fragrant fields to
Anne Hathaway's cottage, which was not very far away, and sitting down
in some sequestered nook, Philip would pull from his pocket a volume of
the immortal Plays, and read passages aloud in his fine mellow voice,
while Thelma, making posies of the meadow flowers, listened entranced.
Sometimes, when he was in a more business-like humor, he would bring out
Cicero's Orations, and after pondering over them for a while would talk
very grandly about the way in which he meant to speak in Parliament.

"They want dash and fire there," he said, "and these qualities must be
united with good common sense. In addressing the House, you see, Thelma,
one must rouse and interest the men--not bore them. You can't expect
fellows to pass a Bill if you've made them long for their beds all the
time you've been talking about it."

Thelma smiled and glanced over his shoulder at "Cicero's Orations."

"And do you wish to speak to them like Cicero, my boy?" she said gen