their cornices and mouldings, i.e., the corner-finish and completeness
to the most important projecting lines. And yet these houses are
evidently built with relation to each other; they generally harmonize,
and set off, and uphold each other, just as forest trees form themselves
naturally into groups for support and protection.

All this we may see at a distance, looking down the varied perspective
of these streets of clustering dwellings; and the closer we examine
them, the more we find to interest, if not to admire. If we gain little
in architectural knowledge, we at least gain pleasure, we learn _the
value of variety in its simplest forms_, and notice how easy it would be
to relieve the monotony of our London streets; we learn, too, the
artistic value of high-pitched roofs, of contrast in colour (if it be
only of dark beams against white plaster) and of _meaning_ in every line
of construction.

These, and many more such, sheaves we may gather from our Norman
harvest, but we must haste and bind them, for the winds of time are
scattering fast. Pont Audemer is being modernised, and many an
interesting old building is doomed to destruction; whilst cotton-mills
and steam-engines, and little white villas amongst the trees, black
coats and parisian bonnets, all tend to blot out the memories of
mediæval days. Let us make the most of the place whilst there is
time--and let us, before we pass on to Lisieux, add one picture of Pont
Audemer in the early morning--a picture which every year will seem less
real.[8]

There are few monuments or churches to examine, and when we have seen
the stained-glass windows in the fine old church of St. Ouen, and walked
by the banks of the Rille, to the ruins of a castle (of the twelfth