It had once been a monastery.

It was covered with ivy, which grew thick and hungry upon it, and it was called the Cloistered House.

The last of the three was of wood, and of no great size--a severely plain but dignified structure, looking like some council-hall of a past era.

Its heavy oak doors and windows with diamond panes, and its air of order, cleanliness and serenity, gave it a commanding influence in the picture.

It was the key to the history of the village--a Quaker Meeting-house.
Involuntarily the village had built itself in such a way that it made a wide avenue from the common at one end to the Meeting-house on the gorse-grown upland at the other.