Page:Letters from Abroad to Kindred at Home (Volume 1).djvu/62

Rh the thronged thoroughfares (Fleet-street, I believe), to which it seems a sort of episode, or, rather, like a curious antique pendent to a chain of modern workmanship. The ground, now occupied by the lawyers, was formerly appropriated to the Knights Templars. Their chapel still remains; a singular old structure it is. A part of it is in its original condition, as it was when the Du Bois Guiberts of the romantic days worshipped there. When I looked at their effigies in stone, I could almost hear their armour clanking and ringing on the pavement.

As you will perceive from my barren report to you, I have given very little time to sight-seeing, and less to public amusements. I went once to Covent Garden Theatre with Mrs. ——. She has a free ticket, which admits two persons, one of the small fruits of her literary sowing, a species of labour which should produce to her a wide-spread and golden harvest. We went unattended — a new experience to me. Necessity has taught women here more independence than with us, and it has its advantages to both parties; the men are saved much bother, and the women gain faculty and freedom. Mrs. —— proceeded with as much ease as if she were going to her own room at home, and we met with no difficulty or impertinence whatever, not even a stare. The play was Henry V., as it is restored by Macready, who, with a zeal that all true