Discouraging, indeed! but we dissented, for there is much in the little town to please one in whom familiarity has not bred contempt. The huge, rambling Bell Inn seemed wonderfully attractive, though quite out of proportion to the village at present. Facing the inn is the church, remarkable for its Early English windows and fine open hammer-beam, carved-oak roof, supported from corbels of angel figures with extended wings. Quite as unusual is the hexagonal market cross, built of heavy oak timbers, gracefully carved, which support the leaden roof. Besides these ancient landmarks, there is much else pleasing in Mildenhall. The thatched cottages, brilliant flower gardens and narrow streets, all combine to make it a snug, charming place where one might quite forget the workaday world without. Later in our wanderings we made another incursion into East Anglia, and retraced our route over many of its fine highways. We paused at Colchester and sought out some of the odd corners we missed before. On leaving the old city we wandered from the London road into quiet byways in search of Layer Marney, of whose stupendous ruined towers we had read years ago. After no end of inquiry, we came in sight of these, only to learn that the ruin had been incorporated into a modern mansion by a London gentleman and was no longer accessible to visitors. Still, we were able to come quite close and found work still in progress--a number of men laying out formal gardens about the house. The interest centers in the gate towers built four hundred years ago by Lord Marney, who planned to erect a mansion to correspond with his exalted station. But his unfinished work stands as a monument to his blighted hopes, for he died before his task was well begun and his only son followed him a year later. The structure is strikingly original in style; the entrance flanked by great octagonal towers eight stories high, with two immense windows--a network of stone mullions--just above the gateway. It was one of the earliest buildings since Roman times to be constructed of brick, and most unusual are the terra cotta moldings, which have a classic touch, due to Italian workmen brought to England by Lord Marney. [Illustration: MARNEY TOWERS, ESSEX.]