Mina's diary: 24 July. Whitby.
Lucy met me at the station. She looks sweeter and lovelier than ever. Then we drove up to the house at the Crescent in which her family have rooms. Whitby is a lovely place. The little river, the Esk, runs through a deep valley, which broadens out as it comes near the harbour. A great viaduct runs across the valley, and when you look through it the view somehow seems further away than it really is.

The valley is beautifully green, and it is so steep that when you are on the high land on either side you look right across it. You only know it is there if you are near enough to see down. In the old town - the side away from us, the houses are all red-roofed. They seem to be piled up one over the other, like the pictures we see of houses at Nuremberg.

Right over the town is the ruin of Whitby Abbey, which was sacked by the Vikings. It is the scene of part of 'Marmion', where the girl was killed. It is a most noble ruin, of immense size, and full of beautiful and romantic bits. There is a legend that a ghost, a white lady, is seen in one of the windows. Between it and the town there is another church, the parish church. There is a big graveyard around it, all full of tombstones.

Vocabulary:

Crescent: A road in the fashionable part of town
Rooms: Here it means the rooms were rented
Broadens out: Gets wider
Viaduct :A bridge carrying water
Sacked: Attacked, robbed and destroyed
Marmion: A popular 19th century poem
Parish: The administrative area of a church
Tombstones: Markers showing where someone is buried

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