almost every day when he was at home. She
said, "If I had met him and did not know who he was, I should have set
him down as a good-hearted English gentleman." He was very popular and
much liked in the neighbourhood. On his return from America, in the
first week of May, 1868, garlands of flowers were put by the villagers
across the road from the railway station to Gad's Hill. There was a flag
at Gad's (a Union Jack, she thinks), which was always hoisted when
Dickens was at home. He never read at Higham, and never came to the
school; but he always allowed the use of the meadow at the back of Gad's
Hill Place for the school treats, either of church or chapel, and
contributed to such treats sweets and what not.

Mrs. Taylor remembers that the carriage was sent down from Gad's Hill
Place to the Higham railway station nearly every night at ten o'clock to
meet either Charles Dickens or his friends. It passed the school, and
she well recollects the pleasant sound made by the bells. She heard
Dickens read _Sairey Gamp_ in London once, and did not like the dress he
wore, but thought the reading very wonderful.

This lady says she was in London at the time of the death of Charles
Dickens, the announcement of which she saw on a newspaper placard, and
was ill the whole of the day afterwards. It was a sorrowful day for her.

* * * * *

We are much indebted to Mrs. Budden of Gad's Hill Place for the
following interesting particulars which she obtained from Mrs. Easedown,
of Higham, "who was parlour-maid to Mr. Dickens, and left to be married
on the 8th of June, the day he was seized with the fit. She says it was
her duty to hoist the flag on the top of the house directly Mr. Dickens
arrived at Gad's Hill. It was a small flag, not more than fourteen
inches square, and was kept in the billiard-room. She says he was the
dearest and best gentleman that ever lived, and the kindest of masters.
He asked her to stay and wait at table the night he was taken ill; she
said if he wished it she would, and then he said, 'Never mind; I don't
feel well.' She saw him after he was dead, laid out in the dining-room,
when his coffin was covered with scarlet geraniums--his favourite
flower. The flower-beds on the lawns at Gad's Hill in his time were
always filled with scarlet geraniums; they have since been done away
with. Over the head of the coffin was the oil painting of himself as a
young man (probably Maclise's port