s respectful, but
doubtful. The moment he learns that the lost article is an umbrella
his manner is pervaded with a gentle hopelessness. He, however,
listens forbearingly to my story.

"And aboot what time was it, sir, when ye went ty bed?"

"About half-past eleven."

"Oh, then the night porter ull know of it, sir. He's abed now. I'll
ask him when he gets oop."

And so, when we go to Netley Abbey, I take a covered cab, because of
my lost umbrella. It was a beautiful umbrella to keep off the sun.
Nobody can make an umbrella like an Englishman. I should be sorry
to lose it. I bought it in Regent street only a few days ago, but I
already love it with a passionate affection.

Through the hot paved streets, over a floating bridge, past the
cliff at the river's mouth, through a shady grove of noble yews
and sycamores, past a picturesque hamlet full of vine-curtained and
straw-thatched cottages, through a forest of oaks and past a willow
copse, and there is the grand old ruin of Netley Abbey lifting its
picturesque and solemn fingers of ivy-hung stone above the tops of the
trees which surround and shelter it in its hoary age.

It is really curious how dramatically effective a grand old ruin is.
The weird sense of being in the presence of olden time comes over us
immediately. We look about us to see the spirit of some cloistered
monk come stealing by with hood and girdle. Here--actually here,
in these nooks all crumbling under Time's gnawing tooth--did old
Cistercian monks kneel with shaved heads and confess their sins, and
their bones have been powdered into dust three hundred years!
Romsey Abbey--within whose well-kept walls we rather yawned over
Palmerstonian eulogiums--is a thousand years old. This abbey is only
six hundred and thirty-two years old. Romsey has been restored, and
modern men go to church there on Sunday decorously. Netley has been
left to go to utter ruin. Grass grows in its long-drawn aisles. Owls
hoot in its moss-clothed chimneys. It is dramatically effective.

We wander through cloistered courts into the main body of the church.
Yonder stood the pulpit, here gathered the worshipers. The carpet is
green grass. Trees grow within the walls. Ivy clambers from side to
side of the tall windows, in place of the stained glass once there.
Most of the windows have tumbled to decay, walls and all. The roof is
the sky--naught else.

We climb up the stone staircase in the turret. All the stone steps are
worn