Some day this foundation, with its income of £10,000 a year, must be sent back to East London, to which it belongs. Poor East London! It had one--only one--ancient and venerable foundation, and they have wantonly and uselessly destroyed it. Everybody who visits London goes to see the Temple Church and the courts formerly trodden by the Templars, now echoing the hurried feet of lawyers and their clerks. Their beautiful church, however, is that of the new Temple. There was an older Temple than this. It stood at the north-east corner of Chancery Lane. It was certainly some kind of quadrangular college with its chapel, its hall, its courts, and its gardens. When the Templars moved to their new quarters, it passed into other hands and ceased to be a monastic place. Some of its buildings survived until the sixteenth century. Is the legend of St. Mary Overies too well-known a story to be retold? Perhaps there are some readers who have not read the _Chronicles of London Bridge_, where it is narrated. [Illustration: DOWGATE DOCK] Long years ago, before there was any London Bridge at all, a ferry plied across the river between what is now Dowgate Dock and that now called St. Saviour's Dock--both of which exist untouched, save that the buildings round them are changed. At one time the ferry-master--he appears to have sat at home and taken the money while his servants tugged at the oar--was one Awdrey. There was no competition in the ferry trade of the time, so that this worthy employer of labor grew rich. As he became old, however, he fell into the vice common to rich men who are also old--that is to say, he became avaricious, covetous, and miserly; he suffered acutely from this failing, in so much that he grudged his servants their very food. This miser had a daughter, a lovely damsel named Mary, of whom many young knights became amorous. To one of these she lost her heart; and, as too commonly happens, to the poorest, a thing which her father could not countenance. The knight, therefore, not being able to get the consent of Awdrey père, removed to another place, guarding still the memory of his Mary, and still beloved by her. As there was no post in those days, and neither could write, they exchanged no letters, but they preserved their constancy and fidelity.