Furness Abbey is well worth a visit. While only fragments of its walls remain, excavations have been made with such care and intelligence that one has the whole groundwork of the great establishment before him and may gain from it an excellent idea of monastic life. With the sole exception of Fountains, it is probably the most extensive monastic ruin in Britain, and while it lacks much of the beauty and impressiveness of its Yorkshire rival, it serves to give one a better insight into the daily life of the ancient occupants. Judged by our standard, it must have been a rigorous, cheerless life, though it probably contrasted more favorably with conditions of its own time. There is today a growing belief that, on the average, the life of the monks was not so easy nor so corrupt as apologists for the ruthless despoilation of the abbeys would have us think. I have consumed in these vagaries the space that I should have devoted to the description of the abbey; but descriptions are easy to be had and the best of them will fall short of the interest and beauty that awaits the visitor to the charming Lancashire ruin. One may well stay a day at the hotel, than which there are few in England more comfortable, more beautifully located, or better in appointment. We have covered three thousand miles in our wanderings and a certain weariness possesses us. We feel that a rest of a day or two will not come amiss, and no place within reach appeals to us as old York. To our notion the resort towns with their ostentatious hotels--Harrogate and Ilkley are nearer--cannot compare with the cathedral city and its Station Hotel as a place where one may be at ease. The Station, with its unpretentious and prosaic name, is the property of the railway company, a great rambling building of yellow brick, unhampered by limitations of space and so arranged that every guest-room has light and air from the outside. There are spacious and finely kept grounds in front and at some distance to the rear is the station, but not close enough to disturb the quiet of the hotel.