Wander whither he will among the Fens of Lincolnshire the visitor need fear no disturbance of that sense of communion with the past which Crowland creates. Everything seems touched with "the golden stain of time." Even such a building as Gretford Hall, the mullioned windows of which have thrown their image into their watery mirror since the days of Queen Elizabeth, seems a modern structure in this land of ancient abbeys and churches and dwellings. No district in England can excel the Fenland for the beauty and age of its ecclesiastical architecture. Here a village will display a parish church of the graceful early English period, there another keeps careful custody of a rural temple which dates back to Norman times. Nor is it greatly different with the home dwellings of the Fen folk. Those who builded for these peaceful people built for the centuries. Generation after generation has known no other home than such as greet the wayfarer wherever he wanders. Something, too, of the quiet, confident stability of this unique countryside is suggested by the sturdy, centuries-old bridges which span the frequent rivers. These waterways also are a reflex of the lives spent by their reed-fringed banks. Under the summer sky, in the radiance of moon or starlight, and in the briefer gleam and longer gloom of winter days, their flowing to the sea is ever "without haste, without rest." A WITNEY AND MINSTER LOVEL 66 LTHOUGH, as the crow flies, but ten miles distant from Oxford - that city which, steeped in sentiment as she lies, spreading her gardens to the moonlight, and whispering from her towers the last enchantments of the Middle Age,” attracts unnumbered thousands within her gates every year few indeed are the visitors from the outside world who disturb the repose of Witney. Yet for historic interest and placid pastoral scenery few districts in the county can hope to compete with this little town and its surroundings. 66 Excitement must not be sought here, nor any sights" save such as yield their spell only to the reflective eye. Over church, and marketplace, and the ancient houses which line the spacious main street of the town, seems to brood the peace of a far-off age. Life is not altogether idle here, for human hands are yet active plying an industry of remote antiquity; but that pursuit of the practical is powerless to |