All the week, Betty went to a High School, but Saturday was a whole
holiday, and greatly to her satisfaction, it was arranged that she
should spend her Saturdays with Godmother.
It was just a week since she had visited the London of Roman times, but
not till the following Saturday, when she actually saw her Godmother,
did the memory of “the magic part” come back to her.
“It’s so exciting to remember the secret directly I see you!” she
exclaimed. “How far back are we going to-day? Oh, _do_ let us begin at
once, without wasting a single instant.”
Godmother laughed. “We won’t waste a single instant certainly. But
you’re not going back into the Past till this afternoon. I’ve ordered
the car, and we shall drive again into the City.”
By “the City” Betty knew she meant all the _business_ part of London,
to which thousands of people went every day to work in offices or
warehouses.
“Why is only this crowded part of London called the _City_?” she asked
presently when they were driving through bustling streets near St.
Paul’s. “I should have thought the _whole_ of London was a city?”
“So it is,” returned Godmother. “But as it all gradually spread, east
and west, north and south, from London Bridge, it has become usual to
speak of this busiest and earliest part of it as the _City_, and of
all the rest by different names, such as the West End, North London,
South London, and so forth. It’s such a huge place, you see, that such
divisions as these are necessary.”
“Now we’re coming to London Bridge. I’m glad we’re going over it
again,” Betty said presently, as they passed the Monument from which
the previous week she had looked far and wide.
“We will drive very slowly, and I want you to notice several buildings
that can be seen from the bridge.”
“There’s the Tower!” said Betty, looking to the left, where the solid
square of the main building, with a tower at each corner, was visible.
“And there’s St. Paul’s,” she added, turning to the right, and gazing
at its dome and cross.
“Look at all these wharves and warehouses lining each bank of the
river, with the great cranes hanging from them,” advised Godmother. “I
want you to remember this scene. Try to get a clear picture of it in
your mind.”
Betty looked with interest at the crowded shipping below the bridge,
and at the bales of goods, some being lowered into boats, others
hoisted up into the warehouses. She saw how, left and right, the river
was spanned by bridges, and how, as far as she could see, warehouses
and quays stretched in a continuous line, while smoke from thousands of
factory chimneys rose into the air.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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