After all, they arrived at the station with five minutes to spare, just long enough to book their excursion tickets and to leave their bicycles in the left-luggage office. They were fortunate enough to find an empty carriage, and crammed themselves in somehow; it was rather a tight fit for a dozen, but it felt so much jollier to be all together. Chiplow was an hour's journey away; a few of the party had been there before, but to most it was a new experience. The abbey was one of the show places of the county, and the old town had a historic reputation. There was plenty to be seen in the streets alone: the houses were of the sixteenth century, and very picturesque--many of them with carved wooden pillars, and with dates and coats-of-arms over the doorways. Miss Aubrey took her charges into the church, a dim, ancient edifice with a leper window, a sounding-board over the pulpit, and, almost hidden away in the transept, a "ducking-stool for scolds". The girls looked at the curious old instrument of punishment with great curiosity; and Githa, who had brought her camera, took a time exposure of it. "Poor old souls!" said Katrine. "It was too bad to souse them in the pond just because they waxed too eloquent. I've no doubt the husbands deserved it. If everybody who talks too much nowadays were treated to the cold-water cure, we should be a taciturn set." "It might be a wholesome warning in some cases," laughed Miss Aubrey. "It's really very trying when people babble on all about nothing, and insist upon one's listening to them." After lunch at a café in the town, the party adjourned to the abbey, a most romantic ruin, standing among woods by the side of a river. The monks of old must have been true artists to choose such unrivalled sites on which to rear their glorious architecture. It was an exquisite jewel in a perfect setting, and Miss Aubrey was soon in ecstasies over delicate pieces of tracery and perpendicular windows. She set her class to work on an arched gateway overhung by a graceful silver-birch tree. It was not a particularly easy subject, and most of them did not accomplish more than the drawing, though Katrine and Nan managed to put on a little colour during the last half-hour. Everyone was very loath to leave when Miss Aubrey at last declared it was time to close the sketch-books. Their train was due at six, and they must have tea before starting, so it was impossible to linger any longer. Katrine had bought a guide-book at the abbey, and studied it over the tea-table at the café. She was dismayed to find how many objects of interest in the town they had missed. "I should like to see the old house where Mary Queen of Scots stayed," she exclaimed. "It's only just down the street here. Miss Aubrey, Gwethyn and I have finished tea; may we go and look at it? We'll be ever so quick."