She liked the rather frank, brown-skinned, athletic man, whom she had joined on the terrace.

He was a new and interesting type; but although she was two or three years the younger and attractive, their growing friendship was free from possible complications.

Muriel, as Festing had learned, was going to marry the curate.
After the roar of activity at the bridge, where the hammers rang all day and often far into the night, he found his new surroundings strangely pleasant.

In Canada, he had lived in the wilds; on the vast bare plains, and among snowy mountains where man grappled with Nature in her sternest mood.

Thundering snowslides swept away one's work, icy rocks must be cut through, and savage green floods threatened the half-built track when the glaciers began to melt.