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A GATEWAY INTO THE GARDEN

To his Grace the DUKE of DORSET.

My Lord,

I Elizabeth Hills sister and executor of Mrs. Anne Hills deceased of Under River in the Parish of Seal and whose corpse is to be interred in the Parish Church of Seal: but the High Road leading thereto by Godden Green being very bad and unsafe for carriages: I beg leave of yr Grace to permit the proper attendants to pass with the corpse, in a hearse with the coaches in attendance through Knole Park: entering the same at Faulke [sic] Common Gate and going out at the gate at Lock’s Bottom: and you’ll oblige

Your Grace’s most obedient serv^t

ELIZA HILLS.

UNDER RIVER,

18 Oct., 1781.

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So much, then, for the setting; but it is no mere empty scene. The house, with its exits and entrances, its properties of furniture and necessities, its dressing-tables, its warming-pans, and its tiny silver eye-bath still standing between the hair-brushes—the house demands its population. Whose were the hands that have, by the constant light running of their fingers, polished the paint from the banisters? Whose were the feet that have worn down the flags of the hall and the stone passages? What child rode upon the ungainly rocking-horse? What young men exercised their muscles on the ropes of the great dumb-bell? Who were the men and women that, after a day’s riding or stitching, lay awake in the deep beds, idly watching between the curtains the play of the firelight, and the little round yellow discs cast upon walls and ceiling through the perforations of the tin canisters standing on the floor, containing the rush-lights?