“It’s only about twenty years ago that Christ’s Hospital, or, as we generally call it now, _the Blue Coat School_, was moved to Horsham in Sussex. Up to that time it stood here. At first, as you see, the boys were lodged and taught in the monastery that once belonged to the Grey Friars. Long years afterwards, the monastery part was pulled down and new houses built. But the school still stood on the old ground, and forty years ago, boys played over the place where hundreds of Grey Friars were buried. Now they play in green fields in the country, and live in red-brick newly-built houses, and have a new red-brick chapel instead of this ancient church.” “Isn’t there _any_ of it left in our time?” asked Betty. Godmother shook her head. “Another and quite a different church stands on its site, and instead of the old Courts of Christ’s Hospital, you will see when you come to this place in our day, a huge modern building—the London Post Office.” Betty sighed. “What a pity! But even though the school is moved, I’m glad the boys still wear the same dress as they did in Edward the Sixth’s time. That makes even the new school still interesting, doesn’t it?” “There go some of them,” said Godmother, pointing to where in the distance two or three yellow-stockinged boys were running across a courtyard surrounded by walls that even in the reign of Elizabeth were ancient. “I saw their descendants playing football when I passed near Horsham in the train the other day. And from the look of them, they might have been the very same lads.” “That is what’s so interesting about London,” Betty remarked. “Though it’s so changed now—in the time to which _we_ belong, I mean—things that belong to the Past go on. In a different way, of course. But there’s always something about them to show what they had to do with the Past, isn’t there?” “Yes, if it’s only the name of a street,” Godmother agreed. “Nearly every name in London is a magic key unlocking a door into some part or other of the Past. I’m glad you’re beginning to find London not quite so dull,” she added in a teasing voice. “It’s simply wonderful—when you see it by magic,” Betty returned. “Every one can see it by magic if they take a little trouble,” was Godmother’s reply. “Are there any more big schools we can see?” Betty asked, as they turned away from the great monastery that once held the Grey Friars, and was now peopled by boys. “Several. The century we are in, the sixteenth, is the great time for the starting of schools, many of which, like Christ’s Hospital, are great schools to this day. For instance, close to St. Paul’s, whose spire you can see from here, is the famous school of St. Paul’s, begun, or _founded_, as we say, by Dean Colet, when Elizabeth’s father, Henry the Eighth, was reigning. It’s been more than fifty years in existence already.” [Illustration] “And now it’s at Hammersmith. Why, my brother Harry goes there!”