right spot for such a summer's gathering. Far away
towards the south sloped the fields, disclosing on either hand many a
snug farm-house amidst its ripening crops, and to the extreme east an
undulating range of dim, blue, shadowy hills. Facing a spectator, as he
stood with his back to the ruined gateway, was the town of Crossbourne,
with its rougher features softened down by the two miles of distance;
its tall chimneys giving forth lazy curls of smoke, as though pausing to
rest after the ceaseless labours of a vigorous working week. The noble
railway viaduct, spanning the wide valley, was rendered doubly
picturesque by its nearest neighbours of houses being hidden on one side
by a projecting hill; while the greater part of the old church was
visible, seeming as though its weather-beaten tower were looking down
half sternly, half kindly on the eager thousands, who were living, too
many of them, wholly for a world whose glory and fashion were quickly
passing away. And now, till a bandsman should give a trumpet-signal for
tea, all the holiday-makers, both old and young, dispersed themselves
among the ruins, and through the wood, and over the rising ground in the
rear.

Strange contrast! Those crumbling stones, that time-worn archway, those
shattered windows, that rusty portcullis, all surely, though
imperceptibly, corroding under the ceaseless waste of "calm decay," and
sadly suggestive of wealth, and power, and beauty all buried in the dust
of bygone days; and, on the other hand, the lusty present, full of
vigour, energy, and bustling life, to be seen in the gaily-decked
visitors swarming amidst the ruins in every direction, and to be heard
in the loud shouts and ringing laughter of children, and of men and
women too, who had sprung back into their childhood's reckless buoyancy
for a brief hour or two.

And now the shrill blast of the trumpet called the revellers to tea.
This was set out in rough but picturesque form, in the centre of what
had once been the great hall. New-planed planks, covered with
unbleached calico, and supported on trestles, formed the tables; while
the tea-making apparatus had been set up in what had originally been the
kitchen, near to which there welled up a stream of the purest water.

When as many were seated as could be accommodated at once, the vicar was
just about to give out the opening grace, when a young man decorated
with an exceedingly yellow waistcoat, and as intensely blue a te