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“Do you know what that represents?” asked Godmother, when she saw Betty glance at the monument with interest. “It’s Queen Boadicea driving into battle. I only want you just to remember her name, because you may hear something about her later.”

Again Godmother’s voice was mysterious, and Betty glanced at her, with more curiosity than ever.

It was delightful to be driving by the side of the river with the spring sunlight sparkling on the water, but she wondered where they were going.

As though she guessed her thought, Godmother said presently, “We are going first to drive slowly over London Bridge.”

In a few minutes they were upon it, and the car was threading its way among the crowded traffic, between great vans and lorries and taxicabs and the carts and wagons of all sorts that rolled along with a ceaseless roar. Betty looked up and down the river lined with huge buildings, its surface covered with shipping of every kind, and it struck her that London was, after all, a wonderful city. At the other end of the bridge, Godmother gave Williams, the chauffeur, an order to return, and to stop as close as possible to The Monument, that enormously tall pedestal near the Bridge, which, as Betty’s father had told her, was put up in the reign of Charles II.