"Surely they have not desecrated sacred ruins by putting up a barn amidst them!" she exclaimed, as she crossed the road to explore. There were half-crumbled walls around, part of an ivied stone block that she thought must have been the basement of a spire, and other fragments. "It's not a barn," said Tom Pepp; "never was one. They mended some o' the old walls a few years ago, and made it into a school-room, and the children went to school in it--me for one. Not for long, though. Lady Andinnian and Sir Joseph--it was more her than him--fell out with Parson Sumnor and the trusts; and my lady said the children should never come to it again. After that, the trusts built 'em a school-room in the village; and 'twas said Sir Joseph sent 'em a five-hunderd pound in a letter and never writ a word to tell where it come from. He was a good man, he was, when my lady 'ud let him be." Miss Blake did not hear half; she was lost in an idea that had taken possession of her, as she gazed about inside the room. It was narrow, though rather long, with bare whitewashed walls and rafters above, the windows on either side being very high up. "If this place was the chapel in the old times, it must have been consecrated!" cried she breathlessly. "Very like, 'um," was the lad's answer, in blissful ignorance of her meaning. "Them grey friars used to eat their meals in it, I've heard tell, and hold jollifications." Preoccupied, the sinful insinuation escaped Miss Blake. The conviction, that this consecrated place would be the very thing needed for Mr. Cattacomb's church, was working in her brain. Tom Pepp was ensconced in a dark corner, his dog in his arms, devoutly hoping his master would not come that way until he had made his escape. The ruins belonged to Farmer Truefit, the boy said. The fact being, that they stood on the land the farmer rented; which land was part of the Andinnian estate. "Has nothing been done with the room since it was used for the school!" asked Miss Blake. "Nothing," was the boy's reply. It was kept locked up until Lady Andinnian's death: since then, nobody, so far as he knew, had taken notice of it. "What a beautiful little chapel it will make!" thought Miss Blake. "And absolutely there's a little place that will do for a vestry! I'll lose no time." She went off straight to an interview with Mr. Truefit; which was held in the middle of a turnip-field. The farmer, a civil man, stout and sturdy, upon hearing that she was a relative of his new landlord's wife, the young Lady Andinnian, and was staying at Foxwood Court, took off his hat and gave her leave to do what she liked to the room and to make it into a place of worship if she pleased; his idea being that it was to be a kind of Methodist chapel, or a mission-room.