"Is it in French?"
"Yes."
Rotha thought as she laid down Rivaulx and took up Tintern abbey, that there was a good deal to learn. Pier next word was an exclamation.
"O how beautiful, how beautiful! It is just a door, Mrs. Mowbray, belonging to Tintern abbey, a door and some ivy; but it is so pretty! How came so many of these beautiful abbeys and things to be in ruins?"
"Henry the Eighth had the monks driven out and the roofs stripped off. When you take the roof off a building, the weather gets in, and it goes to ruin very fast."
Henry the Eighth was little more than a name yet to Rotha. "What did he do that for?" she asked.
"I believe he wanted to turn the metal sheathing of the roofs into money.
And he wanted to put down the monastic orders."
"Mrs. Mowbray, this abbey was pretty old before it was made a ruin."
"How do you know?"
"Because, I see it. Only half of the door was accustomed to be opened; and the stone before the door on that side is ever so much worn away. So many feet had gone in and out there."