have to kill his own mutton.

Peter had been tranquilly engaged to Gooch for years untold. They
were to be transformed into Mr. and Mrs. Robson, with some small
appointment about the Law Courts for him, and a lodging-house for
her, where Clarence was to abide, my mother feeling secure that
neither his health, his morals, nor his shirts could go much astray
without her receiving warning thereof.

Meanwhile, by the help of an antiquarian friend of my father, Mr.
Stafford, who was great in county history, I hunted up in the Museum
library all I could discover about our new possession.

The Chantry of St. Cecily at Earlscombe, in Somersetshire, had, it
appeared, been founded and endowed by Dame Isabel d'Oyley, in the
year of grace 1434, that constant prayers might be offered for the
souls of her husband and son, slain in the French wars. The poor
lady's intentions, which to our Protestant minds appeared rather
shocking than otherwise, had been frustrated at the break up of such
establishments, when the Chantry, and the estate that maintained its
clerks and bedesmen, was granted to Sir Harry Power, from whom,
through two heiresses, it had come to the Fordyces, the last of
whom, by name Margaret, had died childless, leaving the estate to
her stepson, Philip Winslow, our ancestor.

Moreover, we learnt that a portion of the building was of ancient
date, and that there was an 'interesting fragment' of the old chapel
in the grounds, which our good friend promised himself the pleasure
of investigating on his first holiday.