* * * * * Is the gap above large enough to include an inspection of a market-cross, a pump, a camp, and a village church? Perhaps, considering how little was left of the last--though, of course, some of the walls had ancient invisible cores. But hardly for tea at the Rectory, which had to be fresh-made; rather like the church, though in the case of the latter a few of the old leaves were preserved from the first brew, so to speak. Poor old leaves!--poor conscious objects of active conservation, each paroxysm of which left a little less of the flavour of the _moyen âge_ behind it--a shadow less of excuse for another subscription list on their behalf, or another paper in the Journal of the local Society of Antiquaries. They were being handed down to posterity with such solicitude that whatever of bloom the axe and hammer of Puritanism had left behind seemed like to come off on the gloves of Ecclesiastical Archæology. Is it necessary to say that the foregoing is only a peep into the ill-regulated mind of Mr. Alfred Challis at about the time that the fresh-made tea at the Rectory had begun to reanimate it? But, of course, Mr. Challis never said a word to this effect to his host, and that reverend gentleman naturally didn't want to talk about local matters. He was sick of his interesting surroundings, and wanted to hear about the new motor-car and wireless telegraphy and aerostation and coloured photography, and all sorts of things that were up-to-date three years ago, and for that matter are still, to a certain extent. About which and other things the literary gentleman was silent and absent-minded, in spite of the tea. Had he been bound to account to himself for this, he would have found it very difficult to do so. Not being bound, he allowed his mind to recognize the fact that he never did talk much to Parsons--you could never be sure you wouldn't give offence!--and to feel that reserve, short of incivility of course, was plausible at least.