rait)--on one side a picture of 'Dolly
Varden,' and on the other 'Kate Nickleby.' He gave Mrs. Easedown, on the
day she left his service, a photograph of himself with his name written
on the back. Each of the other servants at Gad's Hill Place was
presented with a similar photograph. She said he was unusually busy at
the time of his death, as on the Monday morning he ordered breakfast to
be ready during the week at 7.30 ('Sharp, mind') instead of his usual
time, 9 o'clock, as he said 'he had so much to do before Friday.'
But--'Such a thing was never to be,' for on the Thursday he breathed his
last!"

* * * * *

Mrs. Wright, the wife of Mr. Henry Wright, surveyor of Higham, lived
four years at Gad's Hill Place as parlour-maid. She is the proud
possessor of some interesting relics of her late master. These include
his soup-plate, a meerschaum pipe (presented to him, but he chiefly
smoked cigars--he was not a great smoker), a wool-worked kettle-holder
(which he constantly used), and a pair of small bellows. When she was
married Mr. Dickens presented her with a China tea service, "not a
single piece of which," said Mrs. Wright proudly, "has been broken."

She remembers, at the time of her engagement as parlour-maid, that the
servants told her to let a gentleman in at the front door who was
approaching. She didn't know who it was, as she had never seen Mr.
Dickens before. She opened the door, and the gentleman entered in a very
upright manner, and after thanking her, looked hard at her, and then
walked up-stairs. On returning to the kitchen the servants asked who it
was that had just come in. She replied, "I don't know, but I think it
was the master." "Did he speak?" they asked. "No," said she, "but he
looked at me in a very determined way." Said they, "He was reading your
character, and he now knows you thoroughly," or words to that effect.

As parlour-maid, it was part of her duty to carve and wait on her master
specially. The dinner serviettes were wrapped up in a peculiar manner,
and Mrs. Wright remembers that Lord Darnley's servants were always
anxious to learn how the folding was done, but they never discovered the
secret. At dinner-parties, it was the custom to place a little
"button-hole" for each guest. This was mostly made up of scarlet
geranium (Dickens's favourite flower), with a bit of the leaf and a
frond of maidenhair fern. On one occasion in her early days, the
dinner-lift (