GARDENS OF CELEBRITIES 



cakes had some connection though I forget what it was with 

 Walpole House, and that " Henry the Eighth came here to see one of 

 his ladies." I felt it my duty to defend even a royal Bluebeard 

 from so unwarranted an aspersion and I explained as gravely 

 as I could that " he was not that sort of person at all ! That 

 he had six wives ! ' The remark fell on deaf ears, and no doubt 

 as to the truth of the stories remained in the minds of my in- 

 formants, and probably they still confuse the husband of Anne 

 Boleyn with Charles II. and believe my Lady Castlemaine to 

 have been Henry's enchantress ! 



On one warm September day, when I was drawing at Walpole 

 House, though I myself sat in the shade, I could no longer work, 

 for the sun had moved round and altered the effect in my subject. 

 Therefore I put down my brush and gave myself up as one is 

 prone to do in old gardens to the pleasure of day-dreaming. 



And just as at Lambeth the year before, I had seen in fancy 

 the Maiden Queen and a brilliant retinue, issue from the great 

 Tudor gateway into the courtyard of the Archbishop's palace so 

 now I saw the " Majestic Miss Pinkerton " standing in the door- 

 way, and gesticulating for I could not hear a word she said 

 and realized that she was giving instructions to kind Miss Jemima. 



The pair passed inside, and as I waited, wondering if they 

 would return two girls both fair to look upon, their arms round 

 each other's waists came out of the house and tripped across the 

 lawn to where I sat ; and at once I knew them for Becky Sharp, 

 and Amelia Sedley ! 



Then a curious thing happened ; a thing that until then I 

 should have said never could have chanced save in a dream- 

 where chronology is of no account, and when the past and the 

 present the real and the unreal, get inextricably mixed a pretty, 

 rather delicate-looking little boy, ran out of the house and followed 

 the girls a boy with curly head, and short-sighted eyes, and in- 

 tuitively I recognized him as the home-sick pupil from overseas- 

 little Willie Thackeray. The two girls turned and spoke to him, 

 and it was then I remembered that here, these three first met, 

 and I knew that I was witnessing the reconstruction of their 

 meeting, and I knew also -that for nearly thirty years they would 

 not meet again, but that during all that long time the boy would 

 not cease to remember the maidens and the sunny garden ! 



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