“I must finish its story quickly. A good many years ahead this splendid Crosby Place will be partly burnt down, though its Great Hall will escape. It will fall partly into ruins and actually be used as a warehouse! Then almost in my day it will be restored, and finally become a restaurant. I remember having lunch there not so many years ago. But at last, not long before you were born, Betty, the Hall,—all that remained of this Crosby Place you are magically seeing now,—was pulled down to make room for modern buildings. But because it was so celebrated, and held so many memories of famous people, it was taken down carefully, and as well as possible put together again and built up on Chelsea Embankment.” “It’s not a bit the same thing as having it here, where it belongs, though,” Betty objected. “It’s dreadful, I think.” [Illustration] “I quite agree with you. It ought to have remained here in Bishopsgate Street. But let us enjoy our magic sight of it while we can, before we have to return to our own century.” * * * * * Just at the moment, Betty turned round quickly to look after a boy who passed, wearing a long dark blue coat, with a red leather belt round the waist, yellow stockings and a little white tab or cravat at his neck. “Why, there’s a Blue Coat boy!” she exclaimed. “Whatever is he doing in London in the reign of Elizabeth?” “He might better ask _you_ that question,” returned Godmother, laughing, “for he belongs to this age, and you don’t. But he reminds me that we ought to go and look at some of the great schools, and as you’re interested in that boy, we’ll see _his_ school first.” A short walk brought them in sight of a stately pile of buildings. “If we were back in our own century,” said Godmother, “this spot on which we are standing, would be Newgate Street. Remember that, and now think of London as we saw it in the reign of Richard the Second. Do you remember the Grey Friars?” “Yes, the monks in grey robes, with bare feet? There were hundreds of them about.” “Well, that’s their splendid church and monastery, though the monks themselves are no longer there.” “Henry the Eighth turned them out, I suppose?” asked Betty. “Yes, he turned them out, and gave their dwelling to the City of London. Then his son, the young Protestant King Edward VI, came to the throne. Now only a few days before he died, Edward listened to a very touching sermon from one of the new Protestant bishops, about the need for looking after poor children who were fatherless. He was so impressed, that he set apart this Grey Friars’ monastery to be a school for orphan boys for ever, and called it _Christ’s Hospital_.” “And it’s still a school for them, isn’t it?” Betty exclaimed eagerly. “Why, my cousin Dick goes to it. But it’s not in London now. Dick goes to school somewhere in the country.”