The house, as I said, is very little changed,--though Mr. Haweis, its recent occupant, added a statue of Mercury, poised on the ball at its gable apex,--and its brickwork is said by Mr. Marillier to have "had an older, more natural look in Rossetti's day." And "in front the unembanked river, and ... the boating bustle and longshore litter of the old days added picturesqueness to the view, which in all essentials was the same as the aged Turner had looked out upon from his little house not very far away." Ghosts,--of Katherine Parr and others,--have, not unnaturally, been accredited to "Queen's House." But they do not appear to have survived Rossetti's tenancy; for Mr. Haweis, who lived and entertained here for 14 years, was not disturbed by them, "even though he unearthed the entrance of a mysterious subterranean passage, which was believed to have communicated with the Lord High Admiral's House;"--a sort of semi-royal cryptoporticus of intrigue! Mr. Haweis also discovered the antique watergate of the former stately mansion--leading to the stone steps where in old days barges were moored,--the shelving river banks extending in those days far nearer than now. The great thickness of the walls of Queen's House may, indeed, be partly accounted for by the necessity for protection against floods; Mr. Haweis, who sacrilegiously cut a window to light the spiral staircase, had to pierce three feet of solid brickwork. Here is a funny story, retailed by Mr. Marillier, of Rossetti and the advancing Age of Progress: "The only bridge along the reach" (he says) "was old Chelsea Bridge, concerning which Mr. George Meredith tells me a pleasant story. One day there called upon Mr. Rossetti a pompous individual of the vestryman class, with a paper to which he requested his signature. 'We are getting up a petition,' he said, 'to replace the old wooden bridge by a handsome new iron one, with gilt decorations, and I am sure that you as an artist, Mr. Rossetti, will lend us the weight of your name for so desirable an object.' Rossetti's language, on occasion, could be more forcible than polite, and his unvarnished reception of the vestryman's proposal caused that rash but well-meaning person to retire with extreme precipitation." Of all his many pets, Rossetti was perhaps especially devoted to his wombats. To one of these he addressed the lines: "O how the family affections combat Within this breast, and each hour flings a bomb at My burning soul! Neither from owl nor from bat Can peace be gained until I clasp my wombat."