After his father’s second marriage, Tommy and Sarah, his nurse, who was also a cousin of Mr. Newcome’s first wife, were transported from the cottage, where they had lived in great comfort, to the palace hard by, surrounded by lawns and gardens, graperies, aviaries, luxuries of all kinds. This paradise was separated from the outer world by a, thick hedge of tall trees and an ivy-covered porter’s gate, through which they who travelled to London on the top of the Clapham coach could only get a glimpse of the bliss within. It was a serious paradise. As you entered at the gate, gravity fell on you; and decorum wrapped you in a garment of starch.