t you walked amidst perpetual music, for no house
was so ungenteel as to be without a piano. Surbridge Hall itself ran a
great risk of becoming a suburban villa at no distant time; and Mr
Wilkins was in some hopes that his family would allow him to consider
himself an inhabitant of London once more, and no longer doom him to
the cold nothingness of squireship and gentility. But whether they
might have relented in this respect can never be known; for while he
was meditating a renewal of his acquaintance with his late partner,
and an occasional dive into Riches Court, he changed his bed at the
Hall for the family vault (newly built) in Surbridge church, and his
great-coat and riding-whip for a Roman toga and a long gilt baton,
with which he pointed to heaven from the top of a splendid monument
near the south wall. Richard now succeeded to the family honours; and
as he had married a Miss Gillingham--a name which he preferred to his
ancestral appellation--he did her the honour to take it to himself,
and was duly enrolled in the list of justices as Wilkins Gillingham,
Esq. His son was sent to Christchurch, and his three daughters to a
fashionable boarding-school. His mother and sisters retired to
Tunbridge Wells, and they all began to persuade themselves that
Surbridge had been in the family from the time of the Conquest. By way
of strengthening their claims to county consideration, it was wisely
determined to oppose the building invasion as powerfully as they
could. Several farms and fields were bought, plantations were
skilfully placed, two or three feet were added to the height of the
walls all round the property; and it was hoped that some impression
was made on the advancing architectural enemy; for in the speculative
year of 1819, a dozen or two of builders were removed to the Queen's
Bench, and whole rows of houses were left looking up to heaven, in
vain expectation of a roof. Wilkins Gillingham served the office of
High Sheriff, caught a surfeit in entertaining the judges, and in a
few weeks gave place to his heir. Augustus had passed two years at
Oxford--had then married a beauty--the daughter of a country surgeon
of the name of Howard; and as he inherited his father's tastes, along
with his property, he changed his family name; and poor old Widow
Wilkins, who still survived, enlivened the tea-tables of the Wells
with anecdotes and descriptions of her grandson, Gillingham Howard.
Death seemed entirely to have forgott