In this room, when they had looked at cases full of things that were made and used in the fourteenth century, such as bowls, jugs, lanterns, keys, ornaments and a hundred other objects, Betty’s mother all at once said, “Come and see this picture of London in the fourteenth century. Isn’t it a little place? How curious to think it was once like that.” Betty gazed eagerly at a picture which represented the painter’s idea of the appearance of London about the year 1400. “Yes, it’s very good,” she declared. “There’s London Bridge, with just a few old houses at one end of it. And there’s all that was built then of the Tower. And that’s the first St. Paul’s Cathedral, with a spire instead of a big dome. Oh! and look, mother! There’s St. Saviour’s in Southwark at the other end of the bridge. Behind it there’s another church called St. Margaret’s, where they used to have Miracle plays. Such funny plays. Only of course they taught the people about the Bible.” Her mother looked surprised. “You know quite a lot about it, Betty!” she declared. “It seems somehow as though I’d _seen_ it,” said Betty in a puzzled voice. “How wonderful it is to think of the country coming up close to that wall that goes round the tiny city,” her mother remarked, still examining the picture. “Fancy being able to walk through green fields in Southwark!” “The children picked flowers there,” said Betty, rather dreamily, “and came running back over London Bridge with them, and sang, ‘_London Bridge is broken down._’” “My dear child, what an imagination you have!” laughed her mother. * * * * * That same evening, Betty had another reminder of London in the Middle Ages. In the library at home, when she was looking for something to read, she found a book full of poems about London. Some were by new poets and some by writers of long ago. A rather long one was called _London Lackpenny_, and though the spelling and some of the wording was curious, she could make out its sense. It seemed to be about a poor young man who long, long ago came to London, and found it was a difficult place to live in unless one had plenty of pennies. [Illustration] “Why, he’s talking about the very _Chepe_ I saw!” she thought as she came to a certain verse. “Then to the Chepe I began me drawne Where mutch people I saw for to stand. One offered me velvet, sylke, and lawne, And other he taketh me by the hande, ‘Here is Paris thred, the fynest in the lande.’ I never was used to such thyngs indede And wanting mony I myght not spede. Then I hyed me into Eastchepe; One cryes rybbs of befe, and many a pye; Pewter potts they clattered on a heape, There was harpe, pype, and mynstrelsye.” “What have you got hold of there?” asked her father, looking over her shoulder. “Oh, that funny ballad written by old John Lydgate in the Middle Ages. I expect it’s quite a good description of Cheapside as it was then.”