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THE CHAPTER HOUSE.

town had had its quarry. Johnson noticed one room of which he could not conjecture the use, "as its elevation was very disproportionate to its area." I was told that it was the Chapter Mouse, but my informant, a queer little urchin who acted as under-guide, was
ABERBROTHICK.
not trustworthy, for he informed me that the ruins had been caused by a fire in which the Abbey was burnt down a thousand years ago. In this room I found hanging on the wall likenesses of Mary Queen of Scots and of Pope Pius IX. Surely the bitterness of the Reformation has passed away even in Scotland.

The grounds are still used as a graveyard. Here and elsewhere in Scotland I noticed in the inscriptions that the English term wife