lso, that the remains of a ruined priory were at hand. We had often
laughed since at the eagerness and delight with which we hurried off to
look at these venerable objects. It was soon decided, however, that it was
a pleasure too exquisite to be niggardly enjoyed alone, and the carriage
was sent back with orders to bring up the whole party.

While the fly--a Liliputian coach drawn by a single horse, a sort of
diminutive buggy--was absent, we went in quest of the priory. The people
were very civil, and quite readily pointed out the way. We found the ruin
in a farmyard. There was literally nothing but a very small fragment of a
blind wall, but with these materials we went to work with the imagination,
and soon completed the whole edifice. We might even have peopled it, had
not Carisbrooke, with its keep, its gateway, and its ivy-clad ramparts,
lain in full view, inviting us to something less ideal. The church,
too--the rude, old, hump-backed church was already opened, waiting to be
inspected.

The interior of this building was as ancient, in appearance, at least,
and quite as little in harmony with right lines and regular angles, as
its exterior. All the wood-work was of unpainted oak, a colour, however,
that was scarcely dark enough to be rich; a circumstance which, to
American eyes, at least--eyes on whose lenses paint is ever
present--gave it an unfinished look. Had we seen this old building five
years later, we might have thought differently. As for the English oak,
of which one has heard so much, it is no great matter: our own common
oaks are much prettier, and, did we understand their beauty, there would
not be a village church in America that, in this particular, would not
excel the finest English cathedral. I saw nothing in all Europe, of this
nature, that equalled the common oaken doors of the hall at C----, which
you know so well.

A movement in the church-yard called us out, and we became pained
witnesses of the interment of two of the "unhonoured dead." The air,
manner and conduct of these funerals made a deep impression on us both.
The dead were a woman and a child, but of different families. There were
three or four mourners belonging to each party. Both the bodies were
brought in the same horse-cart, and they were buried by the same
service. The coffins were of coarse wood, stained with black, in a way
to betray poverty. It was literally _le convoi du pauvre_. Deference to
their superiors, and the struggl