“Of course,” said she, “they did not know that Charles Kingsley was to have this stall, or they would have cut something more appropriate.”

“Those old monks ’ad a good deal of fun in them,” said the verger, “hand they were particular fond of showing up quarrels between men and their wives, which they could do, you see, without ’urting each other’s feelings.  These queer carvings are hunder the seats, which turn hup in this way, and I’ve no doubt they looked at them most of the time they were kneeling on the cold floor saying their long, Latin prayers.”

“Yes, indeed!” said Euphemia.  “It must have been a great comfort to the poor fellows.”

“We went all through that cathedral,” exclaimed Pomona, when she came in the next day.  “The old virgin took us everywhere.”

“Verger,” exclaimed Euphemia.

“Well, he looked so like a woman in his long gown,” said Pomona, “I don’t wonder I mixed him.  We put two shillin’s in his little box, though one was enough, as I told Jonas, and then he took us round and pointed out all the beautiful carvin’s and things on the choir, the transits, and the nave, but when Jonas stopped before the carved figger of the devil chawin’ up a sinner, and asked if that was the transit of a knave, the old feller didn’t know what he meant.  An’ then we wandered alone through them ruined cloisters and subterraneal halls, an’ old tombstones of the past, till I felt I don’t know how.  There was a girl in New Jersey who used to put on airs because her family had lived in one place for a hundred years.  When I git back I’ll laugh that girl to scorn.”

After two days of delight in this quaint old town we took the train Londonward.  Without consultation Jonas bought tickets for himself and wife, while I bought Euphemia’s and mine.  Consequently our servants travelled first-class, while we went in a second-class carriage.  We were all greatly charmed with the beautiful garden country through which we passed.  It was harvest time, and Jonas was much impressed by the large crops gathered from the little fields.

“I might try to do something of that kind when I go back,” he afterward said, “but I expect I’d have to dig a little hole for each grain of wheat, and hoe it, and water it, and tie the blade to a stick if it was weakly.”

“An’ a nice easy time you’d have of it,” said Pomona; “for you might plant your wheat field round a stump, and set there, and farm all summer, without once gettin’ up.”

“And that is Windsor!” exclaimed Euphemia, as we passed within view of that royal castle.  “And there lives the Sovereign of our Mother Country!”

I was trying to puzzle out in what relationship to the Sovereign this placed us, when Euphemia continued:—­

“I am bound to go to Windsor Castle!  I have examined into every style of housekeeping, French flats and everything, and I must see how the Queen lives.  I expect to get ever so many ideas.”