a woman, therefore
exactly fulfilling our idea of an angel singing?

Think of Gloucester having been laid out on the same plan as the
praetorian camp at Rome! They've proved it by a sketch map of Viollet le
Duc's; and under the city of the Saxons, and mediaeval Gloucester, lies
Gloucestra--"Fair City"--of the Romans. You can dig bits of its walls
and temples up almost anywhere if you go deep enough, people say. It
must have been an exciting place to live in when Rome ruled Britain,
because the fierce tribes from Southern Wales, just across the Severn,
were always spoiling for a fight. But now one can't imagine being
excited to any evil passion in this shrine of the great "Abbey of the
Severn Lands." The one passion I dared feel was admiration; admiration
everywhere, all the way through from the tomb of Osric the Woden who
founded the abbey, to the New Inn (which is very old, and perfectly
beautiful); in the ancient streets, at the abbot's gateway, all round the
Cathedral, inside and out, pausing at the tombs (especially that of poor
murdered King Edward II., who was killed at Berkeley Castle only a few
miles away), and so on and on, even into the modern town which is
inextricably tangled with the old.

There are quantities of interesting and lovely places, according to Sir
Lionel, where one ought to go from Gloucester, especially with a motor,
which makes seeing things easier than not seeing them; there's
Cheltenham, with a run which gives glorious views over the Severn
Valley; and Stonebench, where you can best see the foaming Severn Bore;
and Tewkesbury, which you'll be interested to know is the Nortonbury of
an old book you love--"John Halifax, Gentleman"; and Malvern; and
there's even Stratford-on-Avon, not too far away for a day's run. But
Sir Lionel has news that the workmen will be out of Graylees Castle
before long, and he says we must leave some of the best things for
another time; Oxford and Cambridge, for instance; and Graylees is so
near Warwick and Kenilworth and Stratford-on-Avon that it will be best
to save them for separate short trips after we have "settled down at
home."

How little he guesses that there'll be no settling down for me--that
already I have been with him longer than I expected! Whenever he speaks
of "getting home," and what "we" will do after that, it gives me a
horrid, choky feeling; and I'm afraid he thinks me unresponsive on the
subject of the beautiful old place which he apparentl