Jasmine's zest in the middle ages, her absorption in pre-Norman days, her surrender to the essential England were at first faintly troubled by having to attend mass at a little Catholic mission chapel built of corrugated iron. But from being pestered by Aunt Ellen to compare the facilities for worship in Silchester Cathedral with those in the church of the Immaculate Conception, Bog Lane, she began to wonder if the externals of history could effect as much as she had supposed. If the Cathedral was spacious, the mind of Aunt Ellen was not; if the church of the Immaculate Conception was tawdry ... but why make comparisons? She had never noticed in Sirene how ugly sham flowers looked upon the altar; when she made this discovery in Silchester, she was instantly ashamed of herself; and when she looked again, it seemed as if the gilt daisies in their tarnished vases were alive, as if they were nosegays gathered in Italy. If the church of the Immaculate Conception, Bog Lane, was hideous, what about the English church at Sirene? That was a poky enough affair. But again, why make comparisons? There were rich relatives and poor relations in churches just as much as in everything else. Jasmine was fighting loyally against her inclination to criticize, when one blazing day at the end of July the Dean proposed a visit to the remains of Roman Silchester, at which his three sons expressed horror and dismay. "Why, what's the matter with Old Silchester?" she asked. "Oh, it's a most stinking bore! A most frightful fag!" groaned Edred. "Father makes us sweat ourselves to death digging in the sun," croaked Edwy. "And last time when I chivied a Holly Blue, or it may have been only a Chalk Hill Blue, he cursed me like anything," lamented Ethelred. The boys groaned again in unison. "There's nothing to see." "There's nothing to do." "It's absolutely foul." "Father jaws all the time about history, which I hate," said Edred. "I say, can't you put him off taking us?" But Jasmine declared that they were horribly unappreciative, and declined to intervene. "Well, anyway," said Ethelred hopefully, "Lord George Sanger's Circus is coming the second week in August." The thought of that sustained the boys to face a long summer's day among the ruins of the ancient city.