“In order to understand these wonderful sculptures more fully we refer to the _Liber Eliensis_ which describes Etheldreda as hurrying away from Coldingham with two ladies, Sewenna and Sewara, and as reaching a rocky place on the coast where they were overtaken by the king, but the three ladies crossed the Humber and proceeded south, dressed as pilgrims. One night, while the queen slept, her staff, placed in the ground, burst into leaf and flower. On this spot a church was built and dedicated to St. Etheldreda. When the three pilgrims arrived in the Isle of Ely, they were joined by Wilfrid, the archbishop of York, who induced Etheldreda to take the veil. The miracle referred to in the south-west arch shows St. Etheldreda and St. Benedict appearing to a monk named Brytstan, who was charged with seeking refuge in a monastery in order to escape punishment for robberies of which he had been guilty. The miracle was told to Queen Matilda, who freed Brytstan.”--(W. D. S.) The =Screen= separating the choir from the Octagon was designed by Scott. It is of oak, delicately carved in geometric patterns, and bearing a cross on the cresting that runs along the top. The gates are brass. The first three bays of the choir were begun about 1240; the last six, forming the presbytery, were finished in 1340. The space of a hundred years thus lies between them. “In the juxtaposition of these two magnificent specimens of the Early English and Decorated periods of architecture there is an opportunity of comparison which on such a scale occurs nowhere else. It is to be remembered that in neither case is the treatment of the upper part quite in accordance with the usual practice of the period. When the presbytery was being built there were still standing east of the central tower the four original bays of the Norman choir. These, it may be assumed, were very similar in character to those in the nave. There would, beyond question, have been in each bay large triforium arches, each with a couple of subordinate arches; and a single window in the clerestory with a blank arch on each side. Bishop Northwold’s work was purposely made to correspond with these bays as far as Early English work could do so; and when after the fall of the tower it became necessary to rebuild the choir, Bishop Hotham in like manner made his Decorated work correspond with the Early English presbytery. The choir is, as would be expected, richer in detail as well as more elaborate in design; and it would be difficult to find in England anything to surpass the tracery of the clerestory windows and triforium arches, the beautiful cusped inner arches of the clerestory range, the open parapets at the base of the two stages, or the long corbels, covered with foliage, that support the vaulting shafts. In the