“And it’s still country on the other side,” Betty remarked, looking across the water at farms and clusters of cottages where now, immense buildings line the banks on the other side of the present Westminster Bridge. “And oh, Godmother, how strange not to see the Houses of Parliament of _our_ time! They haven’t been built yet, of course? And that’s part of the Old Palace of Westminster that stands where our Houses of Parliament is now, I suppose?” “Yes, and St. Stephen’s Chapel, where the House of Commons met, was standing there, just as you see it now, ninety years ago, in my father’s lifetime. He saw it burning, and watched the building of the new Parliament Houses familiar to _you_. “Let us go down these steps, and take the boat that waterman is just pushing off. We’ll first go down the river a little way, and then up towards Chelsea.” “The Strand begins to look like the Strand of our time, doesn’t it?” Betty said. “Nearly all the beautiful old palaces have gone, and what were country lanes between them are now _streets_,” she sighed. “What a pity! And there are no streams now running across the countrified Strand and emptying themselves into the river.” “No. But they still run underground, beneath the houses and roads,” Godmother said. “Under Fleet Street, for instance, flows the stream called Fleet. But instead of dancing along in the sunlight, it runs through iron pipes and is a sewer! A sad fate for the poor little river, isn’t it?” “There’s quite a lot of building going on,” said Betty presently. “What’s that big place just begun, where the workmen are now?” “Don’t you recognize it? It’s going to be the Adelphi you saw this morning.” Betty was silent a moment. “And once it was Durham House, and Lady Jane Grey lived there, when it was all country round her,” she said rather sadly at last. “How London changes, doesn’t it, Godmother?” ... Presently the boat turned, and they rowed westward up the river. “We are going in the direction of Chelsea—_your_ home,” said Godmother. “You will find it a village among fields and woods. Kensington is also a country village, and the lanes and roads are terribly unsafe at night. Highwaymen often lie in wait for coaches that may be passing, and ‘_Your money or your life!_’ is what they say when they put a pistol at the heads of travellers.” “It _is_ funny to think of the King’s Road in Chelsea, full of omnibuses and taxis now, being a country lane!” Betty said, for the boat had moved with all the swiftness to which she was accustomed in these visits into the Past, and they were passing Chelsea Church. “But at least I know the church! _That_ must have been there for hundreds of years, because Sir Thomas More’s tomb is in it.” [Illustration]