1 98 I^ISEN B Y PERSE VERANCE. 



pleasantly told in the Daily News: — 'Though not born at 

 Rochester, Mr, Dickens spent some portion of his boyhood 

 there, and was wont to tell how his father, the late Mr. John 

 Dickens, in the course of a country ramble, pointed out to 

 him as a child the house at Gad's Hill Place, saying, " There, 

 my boy ; if you work and mind your book, you will, perhaps, 

 one day live in a house like that." This speech sunk deep, 

 and in after years, and in the course -of his many long 

 pedestrian rambles through the lanes and roads of the plea- 

 sant Kentish country, Mr. Dickens came to regard this 

 Gad's Hill House lovingly, and to wish himself its possessor. 

 This seemed an impossibility. The property was so held that 

 there was no likelihood of its ever coming into the market ; 

 and so Gad's Hill came to be alluded to jocularly, as repre- 

 senting a fancy which was pleasant enough in dreamland, but 

 would never be realized. Meanwhile the years rolled on, and 

 Gad's Hill became almost forgotten. Then a further lapse of 

 time, and Mr. Dickens felt a strong wish to settle in the 

 country, and determined to let Tavistock House. About this 

 time, and by the strangest coincidence, his intimate friend 

 and close ally, Mr. W. H. Wills, chanced to sit next to a lady 

 at a London dinner-party, who remarked, in the course of 

 conversation, that a house and grounds had come into her 

 possession of which she wanted to dispose. The reader will 

 guess the rest. The house was in Kent, was not far from 

 Rochester, had this and that distinguishing feature which 

 made it like Gad's Hill and like no other place ; and the 

 upshot of Mr. Wills' dinner-table chit-chat with a lady whom 

 he had never met before, was that Charles Dickens realized 

 the dream of his youth, and became the possessor of Gad's 



