“The grey ones are the Franciscans, or Grey Friars, and those with the black cloak are the Dominicans, or Black Friars,” Godmother told her.... “Here is an old countrywoman coming in from the southern gate with her butter and eggs! Doesn’t she look comfortable?” She was a stout old lady, with folds of white linen round her neck drawn up on either side of her face under a flat broad-brimmed hat. Her woollen skirt was very short, showing scarlet stockings and buckled shoes, and she carried an enormous basket on one arm. “That white linen arrangement round her face is called a _wimple_,” said Godmother. “Nuns, if you remember, still wear the same sort of thing.” “She isn’t a bit like a nun though,” laughed Betty, watching the fat old woman as she waddled past her. The next moment her attention was attracted by a group of children who came running along the bridge shouting and singing. They all had flowers in their hands, and some of the little ones wore wreaths of bluebells or primroses. “Oh! don’t they look pretty!” exclaimed Betty in delight. “And they must have picked the flowers in the fields and woods just outside that gate at the end of the bridge,” she added. [Illustration] “You remember what is at the end of the bridge as we saw it this morning? A railway station, and a railway arch over an ugly street, with miles and miles of streets beyond. The Church of St. Saviour’s, was the only beautiful thing visible—a change indeed,” said Godmother. Betty watched the children and looked at their clothes with the greatest interest. The little girls wore frocks looped up on one side over a girdle, some of the boys had long stockings and short tunics and wore tiny capes of linen, with a hood buttoned under the chin. The whole merry party presently ran into one of the recesses of the bridge where there was plenty of room, and began to play a singing game, dancing as they sang. Though some of the words sounded strange in Betty’s ears, she understood most of them, and the verses of the song, if they were put into the English to which we are now accustomed, would run something after this fashion: “London Bridge is broken down, Dance over, my Lady Lee; London Bridge is broken down With a gay ladee. How shall we build it up again? Dance over, my Lady Lee; How shall we build it up again? With a gay ladee. Build it up with stone so strong, Dance over, my Lady Lee, Then ’twill last for ages long With a gay ladee.” “That song is old even now—in this year 1388,” said Godmother. “The great-grandmothers of these children may have sung it. It probably celebrated the time when the last of the timber bridges was broken down in a storm, and this stone one, upon which we are standing, was built in its place about the time when Richard the First was reigning.” “And we are in the reign of Richard the _Second_ now, nearly two hundred years later,” Betty replied.