ittle property; and when I get the workmen out this
time, I think I'll leave off." October 1861 had now come, when the new
bedrooms were built; but in the same month of 1863 he announced his
transformation of the old coach-house. "I shall have a small new
improvement to show you at Gads, which I think you will accept as the
crowning ingenuity of the inimitable." But of course it was not over
yet. "My small work and planting," he wrote in the spring of 1866,
"really, truly, and positively the last, are nearly at an end in these
regions, and the result will await summer inspection." No, nor even yet.
He afterwards obtained, by exchange of some land with the trustees of
Watts's Charity, the much coveted meadow at the back of the house of
which heretofore he had the lease only; and he was then able to plant a
number of young limes and chestnuts and other quick-growing trees. He
had already planted a row of limes in front. He had no idea, he would
say, of planting only for the benefit of posterity, but would put into
the ground what he might himself enjoy the sight and shade of. He put
them in two or three clumps in the meadow, and in a belt all round.

Still there were "more last words," for the limit was only to be set by
his last year of life. On abandoning his notion, after the American
Readings, of exchanging Gadshill for London, a new staircase was put up
from the hall; a parquet floor laid on the first landing; and a
conservatory built, opening into both drawing-room and dining-room,
"glass and iron," as he described it, "brilliant but expensive, with
foundations as of an ancient Roman work of horrible solidity." This last
addition had long been an object of desire with him; though he would
hardly even now have given himself the indulgence but for the golden
shower from America. He saw it first in a completed state on the Sunday
before his death, when his younger daughter was on a visit to him.
"Well, Katey," he said to her, "now you see POSITIVELY the last
improvement at Gadshill;" and every one laughed at the joke against
himself. The success of the new conservatory was unquestionable. It was
the remark of all around him that he was certainly, from this last of
his improvements, drawing more enjoyment than from any of its
predecessors, when the scene for ever closed.

[Illustration: HOUSE AND CONSERVATORY: FROM THE MEADOW.]

Of the course of his daily life in the country there is not much to be
said. Perhaps there