sigh. “Did you know Canterbury, might I ask, ’m?”
But Mrs. Stone shook her head.
“Come from the coast, I did,” she said. “Nor never was one fer to gad. There was a ‘treat,’ once, I remember, to Canterbury, but I didn’t go. No; never was one fer to gad, I wasn’t.”
“Oh, but what a pity!” exclaimed Mrs. Nye. “For then you could a seen the holdest church in Hengland, St. Martin’s, with its roses round it—an’ the Cathederal, all grey, with Bell Harry Tower in the middle a-builded up into the blue—an’ the rooks in the elm-trees in the Close—an’ the city walls—an’ the Westgate, as the Pilgrims useter come through on their knees, ’underds o’ years ago, an’”
“Ho, but we ’ad a castle near hus,” interrupted Mrs. Stone with pride. “Which that was ’underds o’ years old, too. An’ as fer the halms-’ouses, I’ve heered tell as they was more’n three ’underd. An’ as nice warm little ’ouses as you could wish for to see, wi’ gable-roofs, an’ moss, an’ pink ’ouse-leek on the thatch. Eh, dear me—me an’ Mary Ann Joyce, we did alwus promise oursel’s, so we did, when we was young things together, as when we was old, the two of us ’ud end our days in the far corner one, what ’ad the pear-tree a-climbin’ up to the bedroom winder, an’ the swallers a-nestin’ in the heaves”
“Ah, yes—them swallers, pretty dears! Don’t one miss the swallers!” cried Mrs. Nye, eagerly catching back from her companion the ball of fond reminiscence. “Can’t I see ’em, such a balmy day as this! . . . by the millbridge, say, in the
