We took the train and went to Chepstow, which is near the mouth of the Wye, and as the railroad ran near the river nearly all the way we had lots of beautiful views, though, of course, it wasn’t anything like as good as rowing along the stream in a boat.  The next day we drove to the celebrated Tintern Abbey, and on the way the road passed two miles and a half of high stone wall, which shut in a gentleman’s place.  What he wanted to keep in or keep out by means of a wall like that, we couldn’t imagine; but the place made me think of a lunatic asylum.

The road soon became shady and beautiful, running through woods along the river bank and under some great crags called the Wyndcliffe, and then we came to the Abbey and got out.

Of all the beautiful high-pointed archery of ancient times, this ruined Abbey takes the lead.  I expect you’ve seen it, madam, or read about it, and I am not going to describe it; but I will just say that Jone, who had rather objected to coming out to see any more old ruins, which he never did fancy, and only came because he wouldn’t have me come by myself, was so touched up in his soul by what he saw there, and by wandering through this solemn and beautiful romance of bygone days, he said he wouldn’t have missed it for fifty dollars.

We came back to Gloucester to-day, and to-morrow we are off for Buxton.  As we are so near Stratford and Warwick and all that, Jone said we’d better go there on our way, but I wouldn’t agree to it.  I am too anxious to get him skipping round like a colt, as he used to, to stop anywhere now, and when we come back I can look at Shakespeare’s tomb with a clearer conscience.

* * * * *

LONDON.

After all, the weather isn’t the only changeable thing in this world, and this letter, which I thought I was going to send to you from Gloucester, is now being finished in London.  We was expecting to start for Buxton, but some money that Jone had ordered to be sent from London two or three days before didn’t come, and he thought it would be wise for him to go and look after it.  So yesterday, which was Saturday, we started off for London, and came straight to the Babylon Hotel, where we had been before.

Of course we couldn’t do anything until Monday, and this morning when we got up we didn’t feel in very good spirits, for of all the doleful things I know of, a Sunday in London is the dolefullest.  The whole town looks as if it was the back door of what it was the day before, and if you want to get any good out of it, you feel as if you had to sneak in by an alley, instead of walking boldly up the front steps.

Jone said we’d better go to Westminster Abbey to church, because he believed in getting the best there was when it didn’t cost too much, but I wouldn’t do it.

[Illustration:  “Who do you suppose we met?  Mr. Poplington!”]

“No,” said I.  “When I walk in that religious nave and into the hallowed precincts of the talented departed, the stone passages are full of cloudy forms of Chaucers, Addisons, Miltons, Dickenses, and all those great ones of the past; and I would hate to see the place filled up with a crowd of weekday lay people in their Sunday clothes, which would be enough to wipe away every feeling of romantic piety which might rise within my breast.”