we shall hear that it has been sold and destroyed, like Sion College, and the spring built over. CHAPTER IV. IN THE STREET. Let us, friend Eighty-seven, take a walk down the Strand on this fine April afternoon of Thirty-seven. First, however, you must alter your dress a little. Put on this swallow-tail coat, with the high velvet collar--it is more becoming than the sporting coat in green bulging out over the hips; change your light tie and masher collar for this beautiful satin stock and this double breastpin; put on a velvet waistcoat and an under-waistcoat of cloth; thin Cossack trousers with straps will complete your costume; turn your shirt cuffs back outside the coat sleeve, carry your gloves in your hand, and take your cane. You are now, dear Eighty-seven, transformed into the dandy of fifty years ago, and will not excite any attention as we walk along the street. [Illustration: LONDON STREET CHARACTERS, 1827 (From a Drawing by John Leech)] We will start from Charing Cross and will walk towards the City. You cannot remember, Eighty-seven, the King’s Mews that stood here on the site of Trafalgar Square. When it is completed, with the National Gallery on the north side, the monument and statue of Nelson, the fountains and statues that they talk about, there will be a very fine square. And we have certainly got rid of a group of mean and squalid streets to make room for the square. It is lucky that they have left Northumberland House, the last of the great palaces that once lined the Strand. [Illustration: THE KING’S MEWS IN 1750 (From a Print by I. Maurer)] The Strand looks very much as it will in your time, though the shop fronts are not by any means so fine. There is no Charing Cross Station or Northumberland Avenue; most of the shops have bow windows and there is no plate-glass, but instead, small panes such as you will only see here and there in your time. The people, however, have a surprisingly different appearance. The ladies, because the east wind is cold, still keep to their fur tippets, their thick shawls, and have their necks wrapped round with boas, the ends of which hang down to their skirts, a fashion revived by yourself; their bonnets are remarkable structures, like an ornamental coal-scuttle of the Thirty-seven, not the Eighty-seven, period, and some of them are of surprising dimensions, and decorated with an amazing profusion of ribbons and artificial flowers. Their sleeves are shaped like a leg of mutton; their shawls are like a dining-room carpet of the time--not like your dining-room carpet, Eighty-seven, but a carpet of flaunting colour, crimson and scarlet which would give you a headache. But the curls of the younger ladies are not without their charms, and their eyes are as bright as those of their grandchildren, are they not? Let us stand still awhile and watch the throng where the tide of life, as Johnson said, is the fullest. [Illustration: BARRACK AND OLD HOUSES ON THE SITE OF TRAFALGAR SQUARE