Their particular bus had been slowly making its way down Ludgate Hill, along Fleet Street, into the Strand, through Trafalgar Square and Piccadilly Circus, into Piccadilly itself, and had now reached Hyde Park Corner, where our friends climbed down the stairs and swung themselves off.
Betty was grumbling just a little. “I never can get down those tiny stairs,” she exclaimed, “without almost bumping my head and catching my umbrella in the stair-rail!”
Mrs. Pitt smiled. “That shows you are not a true Londoner, my dear. We are never troubled. But, never mind; they don’t have buses in Switzerland.”
At this, Betty was instantly herself again. “London wouldn’t be London without the funny, inconvenient buses, I know. And it’s dear, every inch of it,—buses and all!”
Mrs. Pitt pointed out Apsley House, where lived the great Duke of Wellington. A curious fact about this stately old mansion is that on fine afternoons, the shadow of a nearby statue of this hero is thrown full upon the front of his former home.
Old gentlemen, stout ladies, young people, and small children, all ride in England. Page [287].
As they were about to enter Hyde Park through the imposing gate, Mrs. Pitt said:—
“When we stand here and gaze at this scene before us,—the crowd, beautiful park, fine hotels, houses, and shops,—it is hard to realize that this was a dangerous, remote district as recently as 1815. That was the time of many daring robberies, you know, when it was not safe walking, riding, or even traveling in a big coach, because of the highwaymen. Even so late as the year I just mentioned, this vicinity from Hyde Park to Kensington was patrolled, and people went about in companies so as to be comparatively secure.”