ssed in the reign of Henry VIII,
and the buildings, untended and neglected, fell into the state that we
see now."

"And is this actually the place built by Wulfbert?" asked Ruth Latimer.

"Oh, no! That must have been a very rude and primitive erection;
probably it had wattled walls, and a thatched roof. The Abbey was
reconstructed more than once, and the present ruins are the remains of
fourteenth-century work."

"What a shame that it should have been destroyed!" said Dorothy
Arkwright.

"Yes and no. One much regrets the ruin of so lovely a place, but the
monks had grown idle and self-indulgent, and were as different from the
founders of their order as could well be imagined. The old,
self-sacrificing spirit had passed away; and the days were gone, too,
when the monastery had stood as the sole centre of light in a dark age,
at once the substitute for school, college, hospital, and alms-house,
as well as the home of painting, literature, music, and all the refined
arts. When any custom or institution, however beautiful, becomes
effete, the ruthless hand of progress sweeps it away, and supplants it
with something else, leaving us only ivy-covered ruins to show us what
our forefathers loved and valued."

"How grand St. Kolgan was!" said Vivian. "I think it was simply
splendid the way he stood at the door and braved the Saxons!"

"Yes; but to me the truest part of his heroism was not his death, but
his life. It needed far greater self-denial and true courage to spend
each day in trying to teach a wild and hostile people, making long and
fatiguing journeys, and suffering the loss of every joy that earth
could offer him, than it did to summon up the supreme spirit to meet
martyrdom. It is just the same in most of our lives," continued Miss
Maitland, with a glance in Honor's direction; "it takes more real and
strenuous effort to do plain, ordinary things, obeying rules and
keeping our tempers, than one occasional very brave thing; and, though
I would not for a moment depreciate the latter, I think that in the
aggregate the others are of greater importance. Anybody, however, who
can do a courageous deed is capable of living up to it every day, and
thus rising to a still higher level. We must consider ourselves as
failures unless we are trying to develop the very best that is in us."

When Miss Maitland and the girls had dispersed to explore the ruins
more thoroughly, Honor lay still on the grass, gazing hard at the wide