A little crowd clusters every morning at [Illustration: UNITED SERVICES MUSEUM] eleven to see the guard relieved at the Horse Guards, now the office of the C.I.C. of the Home Forces. On the king’s birthday, June 3rd, the Trooping of the Colour at the Horse Guards is an unforgettable pageant. The English have not, like the French, the courteous custom of saluting their flag, but on this occasion every civilian head is bared as the drums beat and swords flash, and the uplifted colours are borne slowly round the parade ground to the strains of _God Save the King_ and the old regimental marches, played by the band of the Life Guards in their magnificent uniforms. It is a gallant sight, and a goodly thing to see. WESTMINSTER ABBEY “It is a wonderful place ... a nation, not a city.” Even more than of the British Museum I feel that it would be an impertinence to speak of Westminster Abbey as a London corner unnoticed by Londoners,--and yet I have known people who have left London and gone back across the seas with never a thought for the cloisters nor a “memorie” of Jane Lister, “dear childe,” who lies buried there, people who may have perfunctorily “done” the Abbey with a guide but have never lingered there at the uncrowded hours till the exquisite beauty of its many corners has become a possession they can carry away with them. I can make no attempt to point out the manifold interest of the Abbey, but there are certain places that I love that I would not willingly let anyone miss. There is no need to write of the interior. No one was ever known to miss the Poets’ Corner, or the Coronation Chair, or Henry VII.’s Chapel, or the Chapel of Edward the Confessor, but I have known people who visited Westminster Abbey and missed seeing the Chapter House. To miss seeing that thirteenth-century octagonal room is a calamity. It is not only very beautiful, with a beauty that reminds you at once of the Sainte Chapelle, but there is an atmosphere about it that takes you back through the centuries to the time when Simon de Montfort was laying the foundations of constitutional government, and the first parliament of twenty-three barons, one hundred and twenty ecclesiastics, two knights from each shire and two burghers from each town met in this very room. The House of Commons was born within these grey walls nearly five and a half centuries ago, when the Commons were told to go to “leur ancienne place en la maison du Chapitre de l’Abbeye de Westminster.” The members met here till they moved to the Chapel of St. Stephen, within the walls of Westminster Palace, in 1547. Turn your back on the ugly cases of the seals [Illustration: POETS’ CORNER, WESTMINSTER ABBEY]