y, with a sigh. "My father couldn't hardly believe it when he
got his orders to clear out the choir. There was a new dean just come
in--Dean Burscough it was--and my father had been 'prenticed to a good
firm of joiners in the city, and knew what good work was when he saw
it. Crool it was, he used to say: all that beautiful wainscot oak, as
good as the day it was put up, and garlands-like of foliage and fruit,
and lovely old gilding work on the coats of arms and the organ pipes.
All went to the timber yard--every bit except some little pieces
worked up in the Lady Chapel, and 'ere in this overmantel. Well--I may
be mistook, but I say our choir never looked as well since. Still
there was a lot found out about the history of the church, and no
doubt but what it did stand in need of repair. There were very few
winters passed but what we'd lose a pinnicle." Mr. Lake expressed his
concurrence with Worby's views of restoration, but owns to a fear
about this point lest the story proper should never be reached.
Possibly this was perceptible in his manner.

Worby hastened to reassure him, "Not but what I could carry on about
that topic for hours at a time, and do do when I see my opportunity.
But Dean Burscough he was very set on the Gothic period, and nothing
would serve him but everything must be made agreeable to that. And one
morning after service he appointed for my father to meet him in the
choir, and he came back after he'd taken off his robes in the vestry,
and he'd got a roll of paper with him, and the verger that was then
brought in a table, and they begun spreading it out on the table with
prayer books to keep it down, and my father helped 'em, and he saw it
was a picture of the inside of a choir in a Cathedral; and the
Dean--he was a quick spoken gentleman--he says, 'Well, Worby, what do
you think of that?' 'Why', says my father, 'I don't think I 'ave the
pleasure of knowing that view. Would that be Hereford Cathedral, Mr.
Dean?' 'No, Worby,' says the Dean, 'that's Southminster Cathedral as
we hope to see it before many years.' 'In-deed, sir,' says my father,
and that was all he did say--leastways to the Dean--but he used to
tell me he felt really faint in himself when he looked round our
choir as I can remember it, all comfortable and furnished-like, and
then see this nasty little dry picter, as he called it, drawn out by
some London architect. Well, there I am again. But you'll see what I
mean if you look at this ol