d more
elaborate ones which will give them all the more pleasure for being of
their own creating.

SOMERSET.

STORIES TOLD IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY.

_By_ EDWIN HODDER ("OLD MERRY").

[Illustration: CLOISTER. WESTMINSTER ABBEY.]

I.--HOW THE ABBEY WAS BUILT.

One day some children came to me, and said, "Oh, do please take us out
somewhere on our half-holiday, and show us some of the great sights of
London." Remembering how it had once been my privilege to be one of a
party invited to go over Westminster Abbey, under the guidance of the
late Dean Stanley, and how, from his graphic descriptions, the Abbey had
ever since had an additional wealth of interest to me, I proposed to
these young people that they should meet me some Saturday afternoon, and
I would take them over the Abbey, and tell them all I could remember or
read up about its history. They were delighted with the proposal, and
so to the Abbey we went.

I should like to take all the readers of LITTLE FOLKS in the same way,
but I remember the story of the British Princess, named St. Ursula, who
undertook to "personally conduct" eleven thousand young maidens to Rome,
and how she came to grief on the return journey, as any one may see who
goes to Cologne, where all their bones are preserved in a church; and as
I should have a great many more followers than she, I think it will be
better if I try in the next six numbers to tell you what I told the
young people who went with me on that Saturday afternoon and on other
afternoons, and as nearly as I can in the same words.

Now, girls and boys, before we enter the portals of Westminster Abbey, I
want you first to come with me and walk round about it, so as to see it
well from the outside; and first of all, we will post ourselves near to
the great hall built by William Rufus as a portion of his intended
palace. It was upon this spot that Edward the Confessor dwelt, and for
fifteen years watched the erection of the Abbey. But you must not
imagine that the beautiful building that rises so grandly before us as
we stand here to-day is the same that the Confessor reared, for of his
famous church only one or two columns and low-browed arches are now in
existence. Of the edifice we now behold, the central portions were built
by Henry III., the nave was added under the Edwards and Henry V., the
gorgeous eastern chapel was raised by Henry VII., and bears his name,
and the western towers rose when George III. was kin