GARDENS OF CELEBRITIES 
cakes had some connection—though I forget what it was—with 
Walpole House, and that ‘‘ Henry the Kighth 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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