the houses grew and grew
until they met. Westminster is very proud, and though now she is mixed
up with London, she says, 'I will be a city, too.' And so she is a city
within London, but there is no difference that you could tell between
the two; the houses run on just the same, and no one could find out,
merely by looking, where Westminster begins.

Well, this is enough for one chapter, and in the next we will see some
more things about this wonderful town of London, which can swallow a
whole city like Westminster and allow her still to be a city, and yet
not feel any indigestion!

CHAPTER III

THE KING'S PALACES

In the last chapter I said something about the King's palace. One of the
first things that foreigners ask when they come to London is, 'Where
does the King live?' and when they see his London house they are quite
disappointed, because Buckingham Palace is not at all beautiful. It
stands at one end of a park called St. James's Park, and it is a huge
house, with straight rows of plain windows. In front there is a bare
yard, with high railings round it, and beside the gate there are
sentries on guard. The palace is large, but very ugly, and anyone seeing
only the outside might wonder why the King of England, who is so rich,
lived in such a dull house while he was in London. But Buckingham Palace
is very magnificent inside, and if you saw it on a day when the ladies
go to Court to be presented to the King and Queen, you would no longer
think it dull. In the time of Queen Victoria, the ladies who wished to
be presented, which means to be introduced to the Queen, had to go
there in the daytime, and as they were obliged to wear evening dress and
to have waving white feathers in their hair, and sometimes had to wait
hours and hours before their turn came to kiss the Queen's hand, it
cannot have been much pleasure to them, and they must have felt often
very cross, especially when it was cold. But since the reign of King
Edward VII., the Drawing-rooms, as they are called, when ladies are
presented to their Sovereign, are in the evening, and Queen Mary has had
garden parties where young girls are 'presented' too, in afternoon
dress. It is not very interesting reading about descriptions of
furniture, so I will only say that the great staircase in the palace is
of white marble, and in the throne-room there is crimson satin and much
gilt, and the walls of the rooms are hung with magnificent pictures, and
ever