Long as he had been away from London, he acclimatized himself very quickly--found out everything about everybody--what singers were best worth hearing--what plays best worth seeing--what actors should be praised--which pictures should be looked at and talked about--what horses were likely to win the notable races. He was a walking guide, a living hand-book to fashionable London. All Mrs. Tregonell's old friends--all the Cornish people who came to London--called in Bolton Row; and at every house where the lady and her niece visited there were new introductions, whereby the widow's visiting list widened like a circle in the water--and cards for dances and evening parties, afternoons and dinners were super-abundant. Christabel wanted to see everything. She had quite a country girl's taste, and cared much more for the theatre and the opera than to be dressed in a new gown, and to be crushed in a crowd of other young women in new gowns--or to sit still and be admired at a stately dinner. Nor was she particularly interested in the leaders of fashion, their ways and manners--the newest professed or professional beauty--the last social scandal. She wanted to see the great city of which she had read in history--the Tower, the Savoy, Westminster Hall, the Abbey, St. Paul's, the Temple--the London of Elizabeth, the still older London of the Edwards and Henries, the house in which Milton was born, the organ on which he played, the place where Shakespeare's Theatre once stood, the old Inn whence Chaucer's Pilgrims started on their journey. Even Dickens's London--the London of Pickwick and Winkle--the Saracen's Head at which Mr. Squeers put up--had charms for her. "Is everything gone?" she asked, piteously, after being told how improvement had effaced the brick and mortar background of English History. Yet there still remained enough to fill her mind with solemn thoughts of the past. She spent long hours in the Abbey, with Angus and Jessie, looking at the monuments, and recalling the lives and deeds of long vanished heroes and statesmen. The Tower, and the old Inns of Court, were full of interest. Her curiosity about old houses and streets was insatiable. "No one less than Macaulay could satisfy you," said Angus, one day, when his memory was at fault. "A man of infinite reading, and infallible memory." "But you have read so much, and you remember a great deal." They had been prowling about the Whitehall end of the town in the bright early morning, before Fashion had begun to stir herself faintly among her down pillows. Christabel loved the parks and streets while the freshness of sunrise was still upon them--and these early walks were an institution.