did. Al Faizi and Alice wuz dretful anxious to see it, and Martin sed--

He thought it wuz probble what would be expected of him, and if he wuz summoned home on account of his business, he said he _must_ be able to say that he had been to Westminster Abbey, anyway.

So he engaged a big carriage, and we sot off, Josiah kinder laggin’ back and actin’ onwillin’. He had found a New York _World_ in the readin’-room for the first time sence he left home, and he sed openly--

That he had ruther stay to home with his dressin’-gown on and read that paper than to see any Abbey that ever wuz born.

He thought it wuz some noted woman, and I wuz deeply touched by his preference, and cast-iron principle; but I explained, and would make him go. So we sot off.

Wall, the first view I got of that imposin’ edifice looked jest as nateral as could be; for Thomas J. has got a big photograph of it framed in his office, with the two great, high towers, 225 feet high, and the big Gothic winder between ’em, and the great Gothic door below. The buildin’ is a immense one; it is built in the form of a cross, and is more’n five hundred feet long.

I can tell you, I had a sight--a sight of emotions, and about as large sized ones as I ever had, as I stood inside, under them lofty arches, full of the mellow light of the stained-glass winders, and looked off down, down that long colonnade of pillows, at the end of which, fur off, is the chapel of Edward the Confessor.

This chapel is full of the tombs of kings and queens--Henry III., in brass, lyin’ on top of a huge porphery tomb; Edward I. and his queen, Eleanor, who sucked the poison from her husband’s wound in Palestine; and Queen Philippi, who put down a insurrection in Scotland, while her pardner, Edward III., wuz away from home.

Noble creeters! I wuz proud on ’em as I thought over their likely, riz-up deeds. I couldn’t have done more for my Josiah, and I felt it as I looked on ’em.

Wall, I said that the very first place I wanted to see wuz the place sacred to the Great Dead. So I went off kinder by myself, as I spozed, led by a guide, but the rest follered on after me.

Martin said that if a telegram should recall him home sudden, he spozed it would be expected of him, anyway, to say that he had stood by the monuments to Shakespeare, Dickens, Thackeray, etc., in Westminster Abbey. Sez he, “I have never read the poems of the last two gentlemen, but I hear that they are very creditable; so much so, that I have heard their names mentioned often, and I would like to say that I have stood by their remains.”

I didn’t say nothin’ to Martin, but the feelin’s as I stood right by the side of that man made a deep gulf that swep’ him fur off away from me, and swep’ me back into a life that seemed more real, almost, than my own.

Little fingers plucked at my gown, as it were, and, lookin’ down, I see the brave, patient face of Little Nell, and Tiny Tim, and David Copperfield, and the old-fashioned looks of little Paul Dombey, and Little Rowdey, Becky Sharp’s neglected boy; and little Clive Newcome’s sturdy figger wuz pushed away anon by the tall, slender figger that walked by his cousin Ethel Newcome’s side with a achin’ heart. I seemed to hear the Old Colonel saying “adsum” to the Heavenly roll-call.

Mrs. Gummidge’s melancholy voice, recallin’ the “old un’,” mingled with Peggotty’s comfortin’ talk and tender words to “Little Em’ly;” Mrs. Micawber, bearin’ the twins, passed on before me; Micawber, Dombey, Pecksniff, Little Dorrit’s patient form, Bella Wilfer’s handsome, wilful face went by me, a-lookin’ up, coquettish, but lovin’, into the sad, reasonable eyes of “Our Mutual Friend.”