to the evening post. Tragedy and the commonplace
things of life--but Jean, for the moment, was lifted far from either.
She was seeing a new heaven and a new earth. Words were not needed. She
looked into Richard Plantagenet's eyes and knew that he wanted her, and
she put her hands out to him like a trusting child.

* * * * *

When Jock and Mhor reached the dining-room and found Richard Plantagenet
seated beside Jean they were rapturous in their greetings, pouring
questions on him, demanding to know how long he meant to stay.

"As long as you stay," he told them.

"Oh, good," Jock said. "Are you _fearfully_ keen on Shakespeare? Jean's
something awful. It gives me a sort of hate at him to hear her."

"Oh, Jock," Jean protested, "surely not. I'm not nearly as bad as some
of the people here. I don't haver quite so much.... I was in the
drawing-room this morning and heard two women talking, an English woman
and an American. The English woman remarked casually that Shakespeare
wasn't a Christian, and the American protested, 'Oh, don't say. He had a
great White Soul.'"

"Gosh, Maggie!" said Jock. "What a beastly thing to say about anybody!
If Shakespeare could see Stratford now I expect he'd laugh--all the
shops full of little heads, and pictures of his house, and models of his
birthplace ... it's enough to put anybody off being a genius."

"I was dreadfully snubbed in a shop to-day," said Jean, smiling at her
lover. "It was a very nice mixed-up shop with cakes and crucifixes and
little stucco figures, presided over by a dignified lady with black lace
on her head. I remembered Mrs. Jowett's passion for stucco saints in her
bedroom, and picked one up, remarking that it would be a nice
remembrance of Stratford. 'Oh, surely not, madam,' said the shocked
voice of the shop-lady, 'surely a nobler memory'--and I found _it was a
figure of Christ_."

"Jean simply rushed out of the shop," said Jock, "and she hadn't paid,
and I had to go in again with the money."

"See what I've got," Mhor said, producing a parcel from his pocket. He
unwrapped it, revealing a small bust of Shakespeare.

"It's a wee Shakespeare to send to Mrs. M'Cosh--and I've got a card for
Bella Bathgate--a funny one, a pig. Read it."

He handed the card to Lord Bidborough, who read aloud the words issuing
from the mouth of the pig:

"You may push me,
You may shove,
But I never will be druv
From Stratford-on-Avon