beautiful, archways, gates, battlements; granaries, storehouses, barns, chantry chapels, oratories, courts of justice, and interiors bright with splendid tapestry, the colors of which had not yet faded, with canopies of scarlet and cloth of gold, and the sunlight reflected from many a shining helm and breastplate, from many a jeweled hilt and golden scabbard, from many a trophy hanging on the walls, from many a coat of arms bright with color--azure, or gules and argent. It is the color in everything that makes the time so picturesque and bright. We see how small their chambers were, how narrow were the lanes, how close the houses stood; but we forget the bright colors of everything, the hangings and the arras, the painted shields, the robes and dresses, the windows and the walls, the chambers, halls, and refectories, the galleries and the cloisters. When Time brings in another age of color--it is surely due--we shall understand better the centuries of the Plantagenets. When the fire destroyed these buildings how much we lost that connected us with the past! True it is that in Westminster Abbey and in Westminster Hall we seem to stand face to face with the history of the country. In the Hall were done such and such things; before us lies the effigy of a king to remind us that he was a living reality--to most of us the past is as unreal as the future; we need these reminders lest the voice of our ancestors should fall upon our ears with no [Illustration: EAST FRONT OF ST. STEPHEN’S CHAPEL AS IT APPEARED AFTER THE FIRE OF 1834.] more meaning than the lapping of the tide or the babble of the brook or the whisper of the stream among the rushes. But we have nothing to remind us of the Palace where the Princes lived; the things that were done in them are not in the Book of Kings, but in that of the Things Left Out--the Book of Chronicles--mostly as yet unedited.