t she did not. The church door was open. I remember mother
telling us once it was right and good for churches to be left open all
day, so that tired people could go in and be quiet, and say their
prayers if they wanted to. But it does not seem respectful to talk out
loud in church. (_See_ Note A.)

When we got outside the lady said: "You can imagine how on the chancel
steps began the mad struggle in which Becket, after hurling one of his
assailants, armor and all, to the ground--"

"It would have been much cleverer," H. O. interrupted, "to hurl him
without his armor, and leave that standing up."

"Go on," said Alice and Oswald, when they had given H. O. a withering
glance. And the lady did go on. She told us all about Becket, and then
about St. Alphege, who had bones thrown at him till he died, because he
wouldn't tax his poor people to please the beastly rotten Danes.

And Denny recited a piece of poetry he knows called "The Ballad of
Canterbury."

It begins about Danish war-ships, snake-shaped, and ends about doing as
you'd be done by. It is long, but it has all the beef-bones in it, and
all about St. Alphege.

Then the lady showed us the Danejohn, and it was like an oast-house. And
Canterbury walls that Alphege defied the Danes from looked down on a
quite common farmyard. The hospital was like a barn, and other things
were like other things, but we went all about and enjoyed it very much.
The lady was quite amusing, besides sometimes talking like a real
cathedral guide I met afterwards. (_See_ Note B.) When at last we said
we thought Canterbury was very small considering, the lady said:

"Well, it seemed a pity to come so far and not at least _hear_ something
about Canterbury."

And then at once we knew the worst, and Alice said:

"What a horrid sell!"

But Oswald, with immediate courteousness, said:

"I don't care. You did it awfully well."

And he did not say, though he owns he thought of it:

"I knew it all the time," though it was a great temptation. Because
really it was more than half true. He had felt from the first that this
was too small for Canterbury. (_See_ Note C.)

The real name of the place was Hazelbridge, and not Canterbury at all.
We went to Canterbury another time. (_See_ Note D.)

We were not angry with the lady for selling us about it being
Canterbury, because she had really kept it up first-rate. And she asked
us if we minded, very handsomely, and we said we liked it. But now w