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“Stop at Strand Lane, close to Aldwych Tube Station in the Strand,” was Godmother’s direction to the chauffeur.

They were soon there, and Betty wonderingly followed the old lady down a winding, narrow road between houses, till she stopped before an ordinary-looking back-door, near which a board hung, with the words Roman Bath upon it. In another moment Betty was in a vaulted room, gazing down at what seemed to be a little swimming-bath. It was paved and lined with marble slabs, but these did not reach quite to the top, and a rim of ancient bricks was visible.

“Once upon a time, two thousand years ago, perhaps,” said Godmother, “there was a Roman villa on this spot, and here is the very bath belonging to it! Under those steps that go down into the bath, there is a spring of water, constantly bubbling up—the same spring that filled it in Roman days.”

“And Roman people bathed here ages ago!” exclaimed Betty.

“It seems wonderful, doesn’t it? But there is the bath that they built nearly two thousand years ago. The water that fills it, comes from a stream forming a well, which in the Middle Ages was called Holy Well. Only a very few years ago there was a street over there, on the other side of the Strand, called Holywell Street, because it was built over the old well.”