“Here it is!” cried Betty presently. “It says Mediæval London on that doorway. That’s the same as the Middle Ages, isn’t it?”
In this room, when they had looked at cases full of things that were made and used in the fourteenth century, such as bowls, jugs, lanterns, keys, ornaments and a hundred other objects, Betty’s mother all at once said, “Come and see this picture of London in the fourteenth century. Isn’t it a little place? How curious to think it was once like that.”
Betty gazed eagerly at a picture which represented the painter’s idea of the appearance of London about the year 1400.
“Yes, it’s very good,” she declared. “There’s London Bridge, with just a few old houses at one end of it. And there’s all that was built then of the Tower. And that’s the first St. Paul’s Cathedral, with a spire instead of a big dome. Oh! and look, mother! There’s St. Saviour’s in Southwark at the other end of the bridge. Behind it there’s another church called St. Margaret’s, where they used to have Miracle plays. Such funny plays. Only of course they taught the people about the Bible.”
Her mother looked surprised. “You know quite a lot about it, Betty!” she declared.
“It seems somehow as though I’d seen it,” said Betty in a puzzled voice.
“How wonderful it is to think of the country coming up close to that wall that goes round the tiny city,” her mother remarked, still examining the picture. “Fancy being able to walk through green fields in Southwark!”
“The children picked flowers there,” said Betty, rather dreamily, “and came running back over London Bridge with them, and sang, ‘London Bridge is broken down.’”
“My dear child, what an imagination you have!” laughed her mother.