gateway at the foot of Mercery Lane, with its rich carving, weather-worn
to a soft blur of gray and brown tones. Near Mercery Lane, too, are
slight remains of the inn of Chaucer's Tales, "The Chequers of Hope,"
and in Monastery Street stands the fine gateway of the once rich and
powerful St. Augustine's Abbey. Then there is the quaint little church
of St. Martins, undoubtedly one of the oldest in England, and generally
reputed to be the oldest. Here, in the year 600, St. Augustine preached
before the cathedral was built. Neither should St. John's hospital,
with its fine, half-timbered gateway be forgotten; nor the old grammar
school, founded in the Seventh Century.

[Illustration: CATHEDRAL, CANTERBURY.]

Our stay in the old town was all too short, but business reasons
demanded our presence in London on Monday, so we left for that city
about two o'clock. We varied matters somewhat by taking a different
return route, and we fully agreed that the road leading from Canterbury
to London by way of Maidstone is one of the most delightful which we
traversed in England. It led through fields fresh with June verdure,
losing itself at times in great forests, where the branches of the trees
formed an archway overhead. Near Maidstone we caught a glimpse of Leeds
Castle, one of the finest country seats in Kent, the main portions of
the building dating from the Thirteenth Century. We had a splendid view
from the highway through an opening in the trees of the many-towered old
house surrounded by a shimmering lake, and gazing on such a scene under
the spell of an English June day, one might easily forget the present
and fancy himself back in the time when knighthood was in flower, though
the swirl of a motor rushing past us would have dispelled any such
reverie had we been disposed to entertain it. We reached London early,
and our party was agreed that our pilgrimage to Canterbury could not