To the laird it was a matter of no consequence where he sat, ate, or slept.

When his wife was alive, wherever she was, that was the place for him; when she was gone, all places were the same to him.

There was, besides, that in the disposition of the man which tended to the homely:--any one who imagines that in the least synonymous with the coarse, or discourteous, or unrefined, has yet to understand the essentials of good breeding.

Hence it came that the other rooms of the house were by degrees almost neglected.

Both the dining-room and drawing-room grew very cold, cold as with the coldness of what is dead; and though he slept in the same part of the house by choice, not often did the young laird enter either.
But he had concerning them, the latter in particular, a notion of vastness and grandeur; and along with that, a vague sense of sanctity, which it is not quite easy to define or account for.