bons, the then owner, when he
visited Chatham and inspected the _Royal George_; but this has been
recently disputed. For many years during this century, the house has
been occupied as a Ladies' School, and the old pianos used for practice
by the pupils are there still, the keys being worn into holes. We wonder
whether Rosa Bud and Helena Landless ever played on them! Looking round,
we half expect to witness the famous courting scene in _Edwin Drood_,
and afterwards "the matronly Tisher to heave in sight, rustling through
the room like the legendary ghost of a dowager in silken skirts, [with
her] 'I trust I disturb no one; but there _was_ a paper-knife--Oh,
thank you, I am sure!'" An excellent local institution, called "The
Rochester Men's Institute," has its home here. The house has been
immortalized by Mr. Luke Fildes in one of the illustrations to _Edwin
Drood_ ("Good-bye, Rosebud, darling!"), where, in the front garden, the
girls are cordially embracing their charming school-fellow, and Miss
Twinkleton looks on approvingly, but perhaps regretfully, at the
possible non-return of some of the young ladies. Mrs. Tisher is saluting
one of the girls. There is a gate opening into the street, with the lamp
over it kept in position by an iron bracket, just as it is now, heaps of
ladies' luggage are scattered about, which the housemaid and the
coachman are removing to the car outside; and one pretty girl stands in
the gateway waving a farewell to the others with her handkerchief.

We feel morally certain that Eastgate House is also the prototype of
Westgate House in the _Pickwick Papers_, although, for the purposes of
the story, it is therein located at Bury St. Edmund's. The wall
surrounding the garden is about seven feet high, and a drop from it into
the garden would be uncommonly suggestive of the scene which took place
between Sam Weller and his master in the sixteenth chapter, on the
occasion of the supposed intended elopement of one of the young ladies
of Miss Tomkins's Establishment--which also had the "name on a brass
plate on a gate"--with Mr. Charles FitzMarshall, _alias_ Mr. Alfred
Jingle. The very tree which Mr. Pickwick "considered a very dangerous
neighbour in a thunderstorm" is there still--a pretty acacia.

[Illustration: Mr. Sapsea's House.]

[Illustration: Mr. Sapsea's Father.]

The house opposite Eastgate House was of course Mr. Sapsea's
dwelling--"Mr. Sapsea's premises are in the High Street over against