The Four Corners Abroad

Mrs. Corner, who was interested in getting some records for a friend at home, determined upon a visit to the pastor of the Huguenot church, and took Mary Lee with her as the others had planned to go to St. Martin's. "You can tell us about your visit and we will tell you about ours," said Mary Lee to the others. "Time is too short for everybody to do everything."

"It was fine," cried Nan when she met Mary Lee later in the day.

"He is the dearest man," responded Mary Lee, "and he told us such interesting things, how Queen Elizabeth let the Huguenot refugees have their services in the crypt of the cathedral, and how there have been uninterrupted services held there ever since. There used to be a great many Huguenots in Canterbury, and there are still a number of French names, though a great many have become Anglicized. Baker used to be Boulanger, and White used to be Blanc. Now the congregation is very small, and there is very little money to pay the minister, but he is full of faith, and is so enthusiastic and simple-hearted. He believes that everything will come out all right. Just think, Nan, if it were not for him the services would have to stop, and after all these years it would be a shame. If I were very rich I would send him a big fat check, for I don't know any one who would use it more unselfishly. He lives in the tiniest little house, and 'does for himself' as they say in England. He had been working in his garden when we got there, and apologized for his appearance, but I just loved his simple ways, and – oh dear – " She paused to take breath.

"Go on," said Nan. "I am tremendously interested."

"He is so dear," continued Mary Lee, "and brought out some of the very old books he has, for as he said, 'I will show you the so many interesting things that I have.' He left his parish in Canada to come over here to take up this work because there was no one else who would do it, and he is so eager for the honor of this early church. He doesn't seem to care at all about himself. He ought to have a nice big rectory instead of that box of a house, and he believes that some day he will have, if it is best, but he thinks more of its being a dishonor to the church than of his own discomfort to live as he does. We are all going to the service in the crypt to-morrow afternoon. Do you know who Beza was? We are going to hear some of the old hymns that are in the old Beza hymn-book, and they will sing them just as their fore-fathers did, the pastor promised us."

"Good!" cried Nan. "I want to go, too. We haven't had a bad time, either, Mary Lee. You know St. Martin's was a Christian church before Saxon days and before St. Augustine came to Great Britain. It was fixed up as a chapel for Queen Bertha; she was the wife of Ethelbert. We saw the old font where he was baptized. There are some curious slits in the thick walls, and they are called 'leper's squints,' for you see the lepers couldn't go inside but stood outside and peeped in. The verger saw we were more interested than most visitors are and he told us a lot. He showed us where the old wall began and where the authentic Roman bricks are. There is a beautiful view of the town and the cathedral from the churchyard. I brought you an ivy-leaf that had fallen from the vine over the church, and we got some post-cards and a little pamphlet on our way home. Aunt Helen says it is called the Mother Church of England, and that though at Glastonbury Abbey the church had its actual beginnings, that it is now in ruins. I should love to go to Glastonbury, but I am afraid we cannot do it on this trip."

"You know Aunt Helen has promised that some time we shall come over and spend a whole summer in England, and then we can go."

"I'd like to spend weeks in Canterbury, and come to know every brick and stone by heart. Aunt Helen and I are making a list of the places we love best and, as you say, some day we are coming back and we mean to stay a long time in each of those places we do love. At least that is what we say we will do, and it is nice to think that we may."

"Hasn't it been an interesting day? I never expected to get so enthusiastic, but somehow that dear French pastor stirred me up so I couldn't help being wild about everything he was interested in."

"Only one more day and then London," said Nan, half regretfully.

"That will be fascinating enough, dear knows. Who could have believed it, Nan, when you were playing your tunes on a log for a make-believe piano and I was running around with Phil, that in a couple of years we should be flying all over Europe."

Nan looked thoughtful. Those days did seem very far distant now, yet they were dear days, and even with lack of means they had enjoyed life in that old Virginia home. "Shall we ever be content to settle down again, I wonder?" she said. "There is still so much ahead; school, college, and then – "

"The then is a long way off still," said Mary Lee laughing. "I don't believe we need to bother about it yet."

"Sensible as ever, Mary Lee," said Nan with an answering laugh.

CHAPTER VIII

IN LONDON TOWN

The bells were ringing out the noon hour when the Corners arrived in London, yet it seemed a quiet and dignified place after Paris. Miss Helen had chosen a neat little hotel for their stopping-place to which they drove directly. The party had amused themselves during the journey from Canterbury by choosing what they most wanted to see. Mrs. Corner selected Westminster Abbey, Nan the National Gallery, Jo the British Museum, Mary Lee the Zoo, Jack the Tower, and Jean Kensington Gardens.

"Gracious! but there is a lot to see," Jo remarked as she turned over the leaves of a copy of Baedeker's London. "It would take weeks to do it all, and I suppose the longer you stay the more you find to see; that's the way it generally is."

"It is particularly so with London," Miss Helen acknowledged. "We shall have time only to skim off the cream this trip, but we can see the most important things."

It was Jo, perhaps, who was most impressed by Westminster Abbey. Many of the things and places in Europe were but words to her for she had "scrambled up" as she said, and the time she had passed at Miss Barnes' school had been her only opportunity for real culture, but she was so bright and wide-awake, so eager to absorb information that Miss Helen congratulated herself that she had asked the Western girl to join the party.

"I can't realize it," whispered Jo, after standing a few moments in mute awe before the monuments in the Poet's Corner. "Of course I knew there was a Westminster Abbey, but I hadn't an idea what it was like. Now, I shall never forget. It seems a stupendous thought that all this great number of celebrities should be buried here, and that you have them all in a bunch before you, so to speak. I feel now as if they had really lived and not as if they were names at the end of poems."

The visit to the Abbey took up most of the morning, but as Mrs. Corner was tired, and the twins soon wearied of looking at pictures, it was decided that Miss Helen should take the three elder girls only to the National Gallery while the others returned to the hotel.

Nan would fain have gone at once to the pictures and could scarcely be dragged away to the nearest restaurant for a hasty lunch. Bath buns and crumpets were ordered, the girls saying that these things were so often mentioned in stories of English life, but when Jo asked for lemonade she was told there was none, but she could have a "lemon squash" which proved to be the same thing. "I shall soon catch on to the Englishisms," said Jo, "and you will hear me asking for a grilled bone and skittles and winkles with a lot of other queer things before I leave here."

"I like the National Gallery much better than the Louvre," decided Nan, as, foot-weary, Miss Helen declared they must not try to see more that day.

"We can come back," she said, "for it is a remarkably choice collection. There are so many of the best examples of the best artists that one gets an idea of nearly every school of painting through many of the world's famous pictures here."

"I am going to begin a collection of photographs and things like that for a sort of History of Art," Nan decided. "It will be a lovely way to study, and there are so many good reproductions one can get."

"That is an excellent idea," agreed Miss Helen, "and I am sure Miss Barnes would greatly approve of your spending some of your prize money in that way."

"What shall you buy with the rest of it, Nan?" asked Jo.

"I haven't quite decided, but I think I shall spend it all in books and pictures. Don't you think, Aunt Helen, it would be nice to buy books at the places associated with the authors? For example I could get a set of Shakespeare at Stratford-on-Avon, Wordsworth in Grasmere, Gray at Stoke Poges, and so on. You see then they would serve a double purpose."

"I think it would be an admirable plan," said Miss Helen, "and just the kind of thing you will enjoy, Nan. Don't spend more than half your money in England, however, for you will see things in Germany and Italy that you will want, not to mention Paris."

"I think I will make my fullest collection of Rossetti, for you know he was the subject of my theme that won the prize."

"That would be quite right and proper, and you will find some charming pictures here."

"Don't you think we shall have time for the Portrait Gallery to-day?" asked Nan wistfully.

"Surely not to-day, dear. There is nothing more wearying than picture galleries, delightful as they are. You will have mental indigestion if you try anything more. Perhaps you and I can slip off sometimes and come here while the others are doing things we don't care so much about."

"I'd like to see the Zoo well enough, but I would much rather see pictures."

"Then we might let the rest go to the Zoo while you and I do pictures all day. There are the Wallace collection and the Tate Gallery still to see."

"Oh, Aunt Helen, do you think we shall be able to see both as well as the Portrait Gallery?"

"We can go to at least one of them, I think. They are some distance apart so we cannot attempt them both in one day. To-morrow we have decided to go to the Tower, and as we shall then not be so very far from St. Paul's we must see that. Perhaps day after to-morrow will give us a chance for one or another of the galleries."

Nan gave her aunt's arm a squeeze; the two were walking ahead of Mary Lee and Jo. Aunt Helen was always so ready to respond to Nan's desires, for they were great chums.

They waited for a 'bus which would take them to their hotel, all clambering on top that they might better see the life of the London streets. Jo managed to get next to the driver and extracted a deal of information at the expense of a threepenny tip. In consequence the way was made so intensely interesting that they were carried beyond their destination, and walked back chattering like magpies.

They found Jean complacent at having tasted clotted cream, and Jack in the dumps because she could not go out into the nearest square. "It is the stupidest old place I ever saw," she complained. "They lock their gates and won't let you in unless you have a key. At home and in Paris all the squares are free. Stingy old English! They keep their gardens all walled up, too, so you can't get so much as a peep at them. They are just the meanest people I ever saw."

"There are plenty of places that are free," Nan tried to console her by saying.

"Where?" asked Jack.

"Oh, Hampstead Heath, Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park," said Nan.

Jack whispered the names to herself as she stood looking out of the window. "Nan," she said presently, "won't you go with me to Hyde Park or somewhere? It is horrid to stay in the house."

"Dear chickabiddy, I am so tired. I didn't realize how tired I was till I reached home. I have been on my feet the entire day. Perhaps some other time we can go."

"Is it very far?" asked Jack.

"Not so very, but it is far for a tired body like me to go there to-day."

Jack was silent a few moments. "London is an awfully big place, isn't it?" she said presently.

"The biggest city in the world."