few feet above
the water a single, disintegrating mound of masonry. Opposite it, upon
either bank of the river, are tumbled piles of ruins overgrown with
vegetation.

These, I am forced to believe, are all that remain of London Bridge,
for nowhere else along the river is there any other slightest sign of
pier or abutment.

Rounding the base of a large pile of grass-covered debris, we came
suddenly upon the best preserved ruin we had yet discovered. The
entire lower story and part of the second story of what must once have
been a splendid public building rose from a great knoll of shrubbery
and trees, while ivy, thick and luxuriant, clambered upward to the
summit of the broken walls.

In many places the gray stone was still exposed, its smoothly chiseled
face pitted with the scars of battle. The massive portal yawned,
somber and sorrowful, before us, giving a glimpse of marble halls
within.

The temptation to enter was too great. I wished to explore the
interior of this one remaining monument of civilization now dead beyond
recall. Through this same portal, within these very marble halls, had
Gray and Chamberlin and Kitchener and Shaw, perhaps, come and gone with
the other great ones of the past.

I took Victory's hand in mine.

"Come!" I said. "I do not know the name by which this great pile was
known, nor the purposes it fulfilled. It may have been the palace of
your sires, Victory. From some great throne within, your forebears may
have directed the destinies of half the world. Come!"

I must confess to a feeling of awe as we entered the rotunda of the
great building. Pieces of massive furniture of another day still stood
where man had placed them centuries ago. They were littered with dust
and broken stone and plaster, but, otherwise, so perfect was their
preservation I could hardly believe that two centuries had rolled by
since human eyes were last set upon them.

Through one great room after another we wandered, hand in hand, while
Victory asked many questions and for the first time I began to realize
something of the magnificence and power of the race from whose loins
she had sprung.

Splendid tapestries, now mildewed and rotting, hung upon the walls.
There were mural paintings, too, depicting great historic events of the
past. For the first time Victory saw the likeness of a horse, and she
was much affected by a huge oil which depicted some ancient cavalry
charge against a battery of fiel