feet look still larger in consequence.  They didn’t talk about much that was interesting during recreation.  Brother Dunstan and Brother Raymond were full of monkish jokes, at all of which Brother Walter laughed in a very high voice—­so loudly once that Brother Jerome asked him if he would mind making less noise, as he was reading Montalembert’s Monks of the West, at which Brother Walter fell into an abashed gloom.

I asked who the visitor in the ante-chapel was and was told that he was a Sir Charles Horner who owns the whole of Malford and who has presented the Order with the thirty acres on which the Abbey is built.  Sir Charles is evidently an ecclesiastically-minded person and, I should imagine, rather pleased to be able to be the patron of a monastic order.

I will write you again when I have seen Father Burrowes.  For the moment I’m inclined to think that Malford is rather playing at being monks; but as I said, the bigwigs are all away.  Brother Dunstan is a delightful fellow, yet I shouldn’t imagine that he would make a successful abbot for long.

I enjoyed Compline most of all my experiences during the day, after which I retired to my cell and slept without turning till the bell rang for Lauds and Prime, both said as one office at six o’clock, after which I should have liked a conventual Mass.  But alas, there is no priest here and I have been spending the time till breakfast by writing you this endless letter.

     Yours ever affectionately,

     Mark.

     P.S.  They don’t say Mattins, which I’m inclined to think rather
     slack.  But I suppose I oughtn’t to criticize so soon.

To those two letters of Mark’s, the Rector replied as follows: 

     The Rectory,

     Wych-on-the-Wold,

     Oxon.

     June 29th.

     My dear Mark,

I cannot say frankly that I approve of your monastic scheme.  I should have liked an opportunity to talk it over with you first of all, and I cannot congratulate you on your good manners in going off like that without any word.  Although you are technically independent now, I think it would be a great mistake to sink your small capital of L500 in the Order of St. George, and you can’t very well make use of them to pass the next two or three years without contributing anything.

The other objection to your scheme is that you may not get taken at Glastonbury.  In any case the Glastonbury people will give the preference to Varsity men, and I’m not sure that they would be very keen on having an ex-monk.  However, as I said, you are independent now and can choose yourself what you do.  Meanwhile, I suppose it is possible that Burrowes may decide you have no vocation, in which case I hope you’ll give up your monastic ambitions and come back here.

     Yours affectionately,