“I want you to remember these,” she said. “Now we’ll go into the courtyard of the Exchange and look at the pictures.”
Betty followed her up a flight of steps in front of the great building, and found that the walls of a corridor running on all four sides of the courtyard within the entrance, had large pictures painted upon them. She soon discovered that much of the history not only of London, but of England, was shown by these pictures.
Before two or three of them she lingered with special interest.
“Oh, Godmother, look! Here’s the market-place of London in Roman times. The market-place we saw.” And again, as another scene with which she had memories caught her eye, “Godmother, there’s dear old Dick Whittington giving alms to the people. He was dressed just like that when we saw him last Saturday, and so were the boys and girls in the Chepe!”
She would like to have stayed much longer before the painted scenes (some of them represented things that had happened only a year or two ago, such, for instance, as the fight at Zeebrugge, and the Thanksgiving Service after the War)—but Godmother hurried her away.
“We’ll come again when we’ve seen a little more of London in the Past,” she said. “I want you now, only just to remember that you’ve seen the Royal Exchange of to-day.”
They drove back through Cheapside, Fleet Street and the Strand into Whitehall, where Betty looked up at that statue of King Charles the First on horseback, which stands with its back to Trafalgar Square.
“As we shall be in London of Queen Elizabeth’s time this afternoon,” said Godmother, “it may be useful to notice all that we are passing now. Where you see that statue of Charles the First, there stood in Elizabeth’s day, one of the crosses to the memory of Queen Eleanor. Remember that, for one thing. We’re passing the Horse Guards, with the soldiers on horseback outside. Remember exactly where the gateway stands. Now look at this line of houses and buildings on the left—Scotland Yard among them. Imagine them all swept away, what would you see?”
“The river,” replied Betty. “The Victoria Embankment first, and then the river.”