'And what did you do all that time?' said Elizabeth. 'Have you read Hereward, and do not you delight in him?'
'Yes,' said Anne, 'and I want to know whether he is not the father of Cedric of Rotherwood.'
'He must have been his grandfather,' said Elizabeth; 'Cedric lived a hundred years after.'
'But Cedric remembered Torquilstone before the Normans came,' said Anne.
'No, no, he could not, though he had been told what it had been before Front-de-Boeuf altered it,' said Elizabeth.
'And old Ulrica was there when Front-de-Boeuf's father took it,' said Anne.
'I cannot tell how long a hag may live,' said Elizabeth, 'but she could not have been less than a hundred and thirty years old in the time of Richard Coeur-de-Lion.'
'Coeur-de-Lion came to the throne in 1189,' said Anne. 'No, I suppose Torquil Wolfganger could not have been dispossessed immediately after the Conquest. But then you know Ulrica calls Cedric the son of the great Hereward.'
'Her wits were a little out of order,' said Elizabeth; 'either she meant his grandson, or Sir Walter Scott made as great an anachronism as when he made that same Ulrica compare Rebecca's skin to paper. If she had said parchment, it would not have been such a compliment.'
'How much interest Ivanhoe makes us take in the Saxons and Normans!' said Anne.