His garden was full of flowers, but of the most ordinary kinds; rarity was no recommendation to him.

Some may think that herein he was unlike himself, seeing his opinions were of the rarest; but in truth never once did Peter Simon, all his life, adopt an opinion because of its strangeness.

He never ADOPTED an opinion at all; he believed--he loved what seemed to him true: how it looked to others he concerned himself little.
The cottage was of stone and lime, nowise the less thoroughly built that the stones were unhewn.

It was HARLED, that is rough-cast, and shone very white both in sun and moon.

It contained but two rooms and a closet between, with one under the thatch for the old woman who kept house for him.