d
ask 'exeats.'"

The College was erected upon a plot of land which had originally been
part of the Abbey grounds. All the old buildings, formerly inhabited by
the monks of St. Bidulph's, and by the nuns in the adjoining convent of
St. Mary's, had long ago been swept away, and only a few ruined walls
marked their sites. The nave of the Abbey, however, had escaped, and was
still in use as a parish church, though the beautiful original chancel
and transepts had been battered down by Henry the Eighth's
Commissioners. It was only a few hundred yards from the school to the
Abbey, and Miss Burd readily gave the girls permission to take Dr.
Linton's music and leave it for him on the organ. It was the first time
either of them had been inside the church when no service was going on,
and they looked round curiously. The organ was locked, or Ingred would
certainly never have resisted the temptation to put on the fascinating
stops and pedals. She tried to lift the lid that hid the keyboards, but
with no success.

"He might have left it open!" she sighed.

"But the verger would come fussing up directly you began to play," said
Verity.

"I don't see the verger anywhere about."

"Why, no more do I, now you mention it."

"Perhaps he's slipped across to his cottage to have his tea!"

"Perhaps. I say, Ingred, what a gorgeous opportunity to explore. Let's
look round a little on our own."

There was nobody to forbid, so they started on a tour of inspection. The
places they wanted to look at were those that ordinary church-goers
never have a chance of seeing. They peeped into the choir vestry, and
Verity gave rather a gasp at the sight of an array of white surplices
hanging on the wall like a row of ghosts. They went down a narrow flight
of damp steps into a dark place where the coke was kept, they peered
into a dusty recess behind the organ, and into a room under the tower,
where spare chairs were stored. All this was immensely interesting, but
did not quite content them. Verity's ambition soared farther. Very high
up on the wall, above the glorious pillars, and just under the
clerestory windows, was a narrow passage called the Nuns' Ambulatory. It
had been built in the long-ago ages to provide exercise for the sisters
in the adjoining convent, to which a covered way had originally led.

"Just think of the poor dears parading round there on wet days when they
couldn't walk in their own garden!" said Verity, turning her head alm