"I have the honor to be, Gentlemen, Your faithful and obedient Servant, CHARLES DICKENS. "To the Governors of Sir Joseph Williamson's Free School, Rochester." The offer fell through at the time; but it was renewed in 1868 in a different form, and eventually the field was sold (by permission of the Charity Commissioners) to Charles Dickens at an "accommodation" price--L2,500--which really exceeded its actual market value. [Illustration: The Grave of Dick] But to resume our inspection. The whole of the back of the house, looking southward, is covered by a Virginia creeper (_Ampelopsis quinquefolia_) of profuse growth, which must be an object of singular beauty in the autumn when the crimson tints appear. As it now stands it is beautifully green, and there is scarcely more than a leaf or two here and there marking autumnal decay. The two famous hawthorn trees were blown down in a gale some years ago. In a quiet corner under a rose-tree (_Gloire de Dijon_), flanked by a _Yucca_ in bloom, the bed underneath consisting of deep blue lobelia, is a touching little memorial to a favourite canary. This consists of a narrow little board, made like a head-stone, and set aslant, on which is painted in neat letters the following epitaph:-- This is the grave of DICK, the best of birds, born AT BROADSTAIRS, _Midsummer_, 1851, died AT GAD'S HILL PLACE, _4th October, 1866_. No one can doubt who was the author of these simple lines. "Dick," it should be said, "was very dear both to Dickens and his eldest daughter," and he has been immortalized in Forster's _Life_. There is a very humorous account given of the attacks which the cats in the neighbourhood made upon him, and which were frustrated by an organized defence. The following is the passage:--