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 heard, the brothers washed their hands in the troughs or in the bason, wiping them on a roller towel which hung beside the door. Then they entered their noble dining-hall, lofty as a church, with ceiling of wood and floor of stone, wainscoted above the height of a man's head, and having down the midst a row of marble pillars. At the end opposite the door, and along the wall on both sides, were stone benches, and in front of them were tables of oak, covered with linen cloth. The prior commonly presided, the abbot dining in his own lodgings. All stood in silence till the prior was in his place, and remained standing while he rang a little bell during a time sufficient for the saying of the fifty-first psalm. When the bell stopped, the priest of the week said grace, and they all sat down.

In the fair gallery of stone in the west wall, deeply recessed and lighted by great windows, reached by a short flight of stone steps, the reader stood to