An excerpt from the book -
Let us go backward a few hours, and place ourselves in Westminster Abbey,
at four o'clock in the morning of this memorable Coronation Day. We are
not without company; for although it is still night, we find the
torch-lighted galleries already filling up with people who are well
content to sit still and wait seven or eight hours till the time shall
come for them to see what they may not hope to see twice in their lives
--the coronation of a King. Yes, London and Westminster have been astir
ever since the warning guns boomed at three o'clock, and already crowds
of untitled rich folk who have bought the privilege of trying to find
sitting-room in the galleries are flocking in at the entrances reserved
for their sort.
The hours drag along tediously enough. All stir has ceased for some
time, for every gallery has long ago been packed. We may sit, now, and
look and think at our leisure. We have glimpses, here and there and
yonder, through the dim cathedral twilight, of portions of many galleries