the Nuns' House. They are of about the period of the Nuns' House,
irregularly modernized here and there." A carved wooden figure of Mr.
Sapsea's father in his rostrum as an auctioneer, with hammer poised in
hand, and a countenance expressive of "Going--going--gone!" was many
years ago fixed over a house (now the Savings Bank) in St. Margaret's,
Rochester, and was a regular butt for practical jokes by the young
officers of the period, although they never succeeded in their attempts
to pull it down. To us the house appears to be an older building than
Eastgate House, with much carved oak and timber work about it, and in
its prime must have been a most delightful residence. The lower part is
now used as business premises, and from the fact that it contains the
little drawers of a seedsman's shop, it answers very well to the
description of Mr. Pumblechook's "eminently convenient and commodious
premises"--indeed there is not a little in common between the two
characters. "Mr. Pumblechook's premises in the High Street of the market
town [says Pip] were of a peppercorny and farinaceous character, as the
premises of a corn chandler and seedsman should be. It appeared to me
that he must be a very happy man indeed to have so many little drawers
in his shop; and I wondered when I peeped into one or two of the lower
tiers, and saw the tied-up brown paper packets inside, whether the
flower seeds and bulbs ever wanted of a fine day to break out of those
jails, and bloom." Part of these premises is used as a dwelling-house,
and Mr. Apsley Kennette, the courteous assistant town-clerk, to whom we
were indebted for much kind attention, has apartments on the upper
floors of the old mansion, the views from which, looking into the
ancient city, are very pretty. There is a good deal of oak panelling and
plaster enrichment about the interior, restored by Mr. Kennette, who in
the course of his renovations found an interesting wall fresco.

He has had painted most appropriately in gilt letters over the
mantel-piece of his charming old panelled chamber of carved and polished
oak (with its quaint bay-window looking into the street) the pathetic
and sombre lines of Dante Gabriel Rossetti:--

"May not this ancient room thou sitt'st in dwell
In separate living souls for joy or pain;
Nay, all its corners may be painted plain,
Where Heaven shows pictures of some life spent well;
And may be stamp