It is a morning in May: along the street on either side are houses; here is a rich merchant’s house standing behind its wall, and beside it is a little tenement occupied by a craftsman. Looking up the street one can see green trees here and there, from those of St. Mary Somerset on the south to those of St. Nicholas Cole Abbey on the north. Half-way up we come upon a low wall; looking over it we see a churchyard shaded by trees and covered with graves, the grass growing long and rank; on the west side of the churchyard stands the church—it is a very small church called St. Mary Mounthaw, one of the latest of the City churches, and built originally as a chapel for a private family. Its name shows that the parish was a slice of St. Mary Somerset, just as St. Katherine Coleman was carved out of St. Katherine Cree, and All Hallows the Less out of All Hallows the Great. The door is open—if we look in we see a few women kneeling; there is the murmur of a chantry priest, for it is morning, singing his daily mass; the church is Early English, the roof is high, with beams crossing and recrossing, they are painted red and gold; springing out from the side of the church are angels with outspread wings; high up in the roof itself above the beams is a sky all blue with silver stars. The walls of the church are decorated with bright-coloured paintings from the life of the Blessed Virgin and her Son; the windows are richly painted; the altar is covered with candlesticks, crosses and furniture in white silk, gold, silver, and latoun. There are two noble monuments, each with its effigy and its chapel of white marble: one effigy wears a Bishop’s mitre; another is the image of an Alderman, who was a benefactor to the church. Dozens of candles stuck on iron sticks are burning, with a few great wax tapers paid for by a bequest; at the door sit two old women, beggars. On the north side of the church, and outside it, is a projecting structure half underground. This is the anchorite’s cell (see vol. ii. pt. ii. ch. v.): on the level of the ground is a small aperture protected by a rusty iron grating without glass and without shutter; by this window everything must be handed in to the occupant. If we look through the bars, we see that within there reigns a dim and terrible twilight, for no gleam of sunshine can penetrate this cold and gloomy den, and even on this bright and sunny morning the air is cold and damp like the air of a crypt. On the other side is a narrow slit in the wall, like the leper’s squint, through which the anchorite can witness the Elevation of the Host; at the end of the cell a raised stone serves for an altar, a crucifix stands upon it, and before it the anchorite spends most of his time day and night, praying. The present occupant has been built up into this cell for many years; he subsists on what is brought him. There is never any fear of his being starved or forgotten: he is well provided for, and the people offer him dainties which he