ng it, than anything else. By the time it is
finished, the cost of this water will be something absolutely frightful.
But of course it proportionately increases the value of the property,
and that's my only comfort. . . . The horse has gone lame from a sprain,
the big dog has run a tenpenny nail into one of his hind feet, the bolts
have all flown out of the basket-carriage, and the gardener says all the
fruit trees want replacing with new ones." Another note came in three
days. "I have discovered that the seven miles between Maidstone and
Rochester is one of the most beautiful walks in England. Five men have
been looking attentively at the pump for a week, and (I should hope) may
begin to fit it in the course of October." . . .

With even such varying fortune he effected other changes.[222] The
exterior remained to the last much as it was when he used as a boy to
see it first; a plain, old-fashioned, two-story, brick-built country
house, with a bell-turret on the roof, and over the front door a quaint
neat wooden porch with pillars and seats. But, among his additions and
alterations, was a new drawing-room built out from the smaller existing
one, both being thrown together ultimately; two good bedrooms built on
a third floor at the back; and such rearrangement of the ground floor
as, besides its handsome drawing-room, and its dining-room which he hung
with pictures, transformed its bedroom into a study which he lined with
books and sometimes wrote in, and changed its breakfast-parlour into a
retreat fitted up for smokers into which he put a small billiard-table.
These several rooms opened from a hall having in it a series of Hogarth
prints, until, after the artist's death, Stanfield's noble scenes were
placed there, when the Hogarths were moved to his bedroom; and in this
hall, during his last absence in America, a parquet floor was laid down.
Nor did he omit such changes as might increase the comfort of his
servants. He built entirely new offices and stables, and replaced a very
old coach-house by a capital servants' hall, transforming the loft above
into a commodious school-room or study for his boys. He made at the same
time an excellent croquet-ground out of a waste piece of orchard.

Belonging to the house, but unfortunately placed on the other side of
the high road, was a shrubbery, well wooded though in desolate
condition, in which stood two magnificent cedars; and having obtained,
in 1859, the consent of the loc