chitectural idiosyncrasy. a sort of Gothic edition of the blessed arcades of Italy - and consist, roughly speaking, of a running public passage tunnelled through the second story of the houses." The shops in the rows are quite up to date, if the construction is not, and one may buy many a charming souvenir of the visit to this interesting city.

A walk around the walls should be taken without fail; many people spend only an hour or two in Chester, and that is a pity. You pass the little look-out tower from which Charles I watched the defeat of his army at Rowton; and you have an interesting opportunity to see the working of the locks on the canal. We stood for some time watching the great, thin, long boats rise and fall with the opening of the floodgates; the boats were snub-nosed, and looked like gigantic sabots.

Recently another important attraction has been added to those already existing in Chester. They have reopened and restored the old Stanley Palace, which is furnished and renovated with much taste and zeal. This old house is mainly a beam and plaster structure. They show a tiny loft in which the Earl of Derby was concealed for many weeks. The little custodian was extremely pretty in her Tudor dress, a sad

rose-coloured brocade three hundred years old. She betrayed marked modern suffragette tendencies, however. When she told us that the earl was finally betrayed by his servant, she added" It was a man servant. Not a woman, mind.” And in exhibiting the working of an ancient man-trap, she remarked, "I wouldn't have used such a thing."

In a 66 History of the City of Chester" there is the following mention of the palace: "A little lower down on the opposite side there is an ancient building now occupied as cottages but which in its early days was a mansion of notable repute. Its erection bears the date of 1591. Its antiquity cannot be discovered from the street, the front being built with more modern brickwork; but on entering a narrow court a few paces below Nicholas Street, the sides of the venerable edifice rise into full view. . . . I believe it was formerly the city residence of the Derby family, which is the more probable, on account of its contiguity to the Watergate, of which the Earl of Derby had the custody."

A subterranean passage once made connection between the Stanley Palace and the castle, also leading to the Watergate, and the trapdoor which led to this is still shown in the entrance hall. The seventh Earl of Derby, about

whom centres most of the history connected with the house, was a loyal supporter of Charles I, and was subsequently beheaded at Bolton, in 1652, "for high treason against the Commonwealth of England, by his friendship and correspondence with Charles Stuart, the deposed monarch." He was first in hiding, and then, after his betrayal by his servant, held forcibly by his enemies in prison, in his own house. A contemporary record states: "The Earl of Derby attempted to escape, and was let down by a rope from the leads of his chamber, but some, hearing a noise, made after him, and he was re-taken on the Dee banks." And later, in the same Memoirs, occurs the item: "Letters of the particulars of the Earl of Derby's death, on the fifteenth, at Bolton, who carried himself with stoutness and with Christian-like temper." He left a number of mottoes and precepts for the guidance of his sons, one of which is striking: "The only service of God is not to be evil." If a trifle negative, this was a good motto for an impetuous youth in those days.

St. John's Church in Chester, too, is a sight worth seeing. The approach to it is quaint down"Little St. John's Street." This small church has magnificent Norman drum pillars.

Some Americans, seeing in Chester a carriage of state, told us, "We saw a big real oldfashioned coach, with a tapestry hanging on in front " (presumably this was a hammercloth). They asked a man if it was an advertisement! Imagine the wounded feelings of the British subject so addressed as he answered, "That is the Justice's carriage."

CHAPTER XIV

L

IN EAST ANGLIA

ONDON in July became suddenly unbearably hot. We could do nothing, so we decided that, as we were wasting time anyway, we might as well waste it where it was cooler. So, having already planned a little trip into East Anglia, we simply consulted the map to see which available seaside resort would be most in our line of travel. The result was that we made a plunge, and landed at Clacton-on-Sea, which is just what it sounds. The town may be said to be laid out in sections devoted to first, second and third class visitors, tourists, and trippers. Taking our station deliberately among the firstclass visitors, we put up at the Grand Hotel at Southcliffe. It proved to be a comfortable place in which to kill time, although, as the Little One said, "Time is too precious to kill.”

We travelled through a good deal of Constable's country, lovely soft meadows, glowing fields of ripe golden corn, bordered with puffy