were houses clustered thickly around its outside walls and the space of ground named its close; but the inside, degraded from its first use, was parceled out to owners and householders.  The nave only had been retained as a church bounded by massive pillars, which did not prevent Londoners from using it as a thoroughfare.  Children of resident dissenters could and did hoot when it pleased them, during service, from an overhanging window in the choir.  The Lady Chapel was a fringe-maker’s shop.  The smithy in the north transept had descended from father to son.  The south transept, walled up to make a respectable dwelling, showed through its open door the ghastly marble tomb of a crusader which the thrifty London housewife had turned into a parlor table.  His crossed feet and hands and upward staring countenance protruded from the midst of knick-knacks.

Light fell through the venerable clerestory on upper arcades.  Some of these were walled shut, but others retained their arched openings into the church, and formed balconies from which upstairs dwellers could look down at what was passing below.

Two women leaned out of the Norman arcades, separated only by a pillar, watching across the nave those little figures seated in front of the blacksmith’s window.  An atmosphere of comfort and thrift filled St. Bat’s.  It was the abode of labor and humble prosperity, not an asylum of poverty.  Great worthies, indeed, such as John Milton, and nearer our own day, Washington Irving, did not disdain to live in St. Bartholomew’s close.  The two British matrons, therefore, spoke the prejudice of the better rather than the baser class.

“The little devils!” said one woman.

“They look innocent,” remarked the other.  “But these French do make my back crawl!”

“How long are they going to stay in St. Bat’s?”

“The two men with the little girl and the servant intend to sail for America next week.  The lad, and the man that brought him in—­as dangerous looking a foreigner as ever I saw!—­are like to prowl out any time.  I saw them go into the smithy, and I went over to ask the smith’s wife about them.  She let two upper chambers to the creatures this morning.”

“What ails the lad?  He has the look of an idiot.”

“Well, then, God knows what ails any of the crazy French!  If they all broke out with boils like the heathen of scripture, it would not surprise a Christian.  As it is, they keep on beheading one another, day after day and month after month; and the time must come when none of them will be left—­and a satisfaction that will be to respectable folks!”

“First the king, and then the queen,” mused one speaker.  “And now news comes that the little prince has died of bad treatment in his prison.  England will not go into mourning for him as it did for his father, King Louis.  What a pretty sight it was, to see every decent body in a bit of black, and the houses draped, they say, in every town!  A comfort it must have been to the queen of France when she heard of such Christian respect!”