“Another woman of a very different sort will also come to live here very shortly. I mean Sir Philip Sidney’s fascinating sister, the Countess of Pembroke, of whom you will read if you don’t know anything about her already.”
“I do know a little. Sir Philip Sidney wrote the Arcadia for her, didn’t he? It does seem strange to think I’m in Queen Elizabeth’s reign and that some of these famous people must be alive,” said Betty. “But, Godmother, you haven’t told me how the Hall of this beautiful house comes to be at Chelsea now?”
“I must finish its story quickly. A good many years ahead this splendid Crosby Place will be partly burnt down, though its Great Hall will escape. It will fall partly into ruins and actually be used as a warehouse! Then almost in my day it will be restored, and finally become a restaurant. I remember having lunch there not so many years ago. But at last, not long before you were born, Betty, the Hall,—all that remained of this Crosby Place you are magically seeing now,—was pulled down to make room for modern buildings. But because it was so celebrated, and held so many memories of famous people, it was taken down carefully, and as well as possible put together again and built up on Chelsea Embankment.”
“It’s not a bit the same thing as having it here, where it belongs, though,” Betty objected. “It’s dreadful, I think.”
“I quite agree with you. It ought to have remained here in Bishopsgate Street. But let us enjoy our magic sight of it while we can, before we have to return to our own century.”
Just at the moment, Betty turned round quickly to look after a boy who passed, wearing a long dark blue coat, with a red leather belt round the waist, yellow stockings and a little white tab or cravat at his neck.
“Why, there’s a Blue Coat boy!” she exclaimed. “Whatever is he doing in London in the reign of Elizabeth?”
“He might better ask you that question,” returned Godmother, laughing, “for he belongs to this age, and you don’t. But he reminds me that we ought to go and look at some of the great schools, and as you’re interested in that boy, we’ll see his school first.”