“Don’t forget also to look for the life-size figure of Queen Elizabeth on horseback and one of the courtiers leading her horse. That also is in the basement of the Museum, and will remind you of how you saw her riding through the Chepe. There are, in fact, dozens of things in the Museum belonging to London of the sixteenth century that ought to be full of meaning to you now.”
“And Shakespeare’s plays will be more interesting too, and Edmund Spenser’s poetry, and all about Raleigh, and Drake,” exclaimed Betty rather incoherently. “Oh, the magic makes all the difference, Godmother!”
IV
The Restoration
THE LONDON OF CHARLES II AND OF MR. SAMUEL PEPYS
“We can’t go for a drive to-day before the ‘magic’ begins,” said Betty ruefully on the following Saturday,—a day of pouring rain.
“No. But how lucky that the rain won’t interfere with our visit to the London of Charles the Second,” Godmother returned.
“Is that what we’re going to see to-day? Oh, do let’s go at once, Godmother,” was Betty’s eager reply.
“Wait a little. I’m going to give you a short history examination first, to make sure that you will understand what we see, when we do see it. Elizabeth was reigning when we last went to old London. Who was the next king?”
“Her cousin James the First, the son of Mary, Queen of Scots,” returned Betty promptly. “We’ve just had it in the History class,” she added, to explain her readiness.
“And then?”