“I want to see the Stone of Scone where all the kings have been crowned,” observed Elinor.
“I want to see the tomb of Queen Elizabeth,” put in Nancy, after deep thought.
“I know why,” cried Billie. “Because she had several hundreds of dresses.”
“You’re just a tease, Billie. It’s because she was a great queen.”
“I want to see the Poets’ Corner,” announced Mary.
“We shall certainly see all those things and a great deal more,” said Miss Campbell.
They entered the Abbey by the western door and stood silently in a little group, looking up at the great stone arches which seemed to them like the spreading limbs of ancient forest trees. A pale ray of sunlight flickered in through one of the enormous windows; but the great church was dim and gloomy with age. Here lay most of England’s dead kings and queens and her great men.
With a Baedeker in one hand and a guide-book of the Abbey in the other, Billie led her friends from chapel to chapel. Even Nancy was subdued and quiet in “this silent meeting place of the great dead of eight centuries.” Mary crept along like a little gray mouse, poking her nose into this tomb and that, and never speaking a word. She intended to write an essay next winter at West Haven High School called “A Visit to Westminster Abbey,” and win a prize for the best thesis of the year.
For hours they wandered through the ancient church. Lunch time passed and they had not even felt the pangs of hunger.
“Just think,” Mary was saying, “Henry VI. was crowned here when he was only nine years old, and the Archbishop put a gold crown on his poor little head; and Richard II., who was just a boy, too, fainted from fatigue when he was crowned and had to be carried out; and Queen Anne cried because her crown hurt her head; and George IV. was almost strangled by his heavy coronation robes.”