In York there are some very old streets; but they are abandoned to the lowest people, and the gay shops are in the newly-built quarter of the town.

In London, what with the fire of 1666, and what with the natural progress of demolition and rebuilding, I doubt whether there are fifty houses that date from the Reformation.

But in Rouen you have street after street of lofty stern-looking masses of stone, with Gothic carvings.

The buildings are so high, and the ways so narrow, that the sun can scarcely reach the pavements.

Yet in these streets, monastic in their aspect, you have all the glitter of Regent Street or the Burlington Arcade.