He's so modest that he might have been afraid of your boring yourself." "That's just what I mean." "Well, if you do," Nanda returned, "the explanation's a little conceited." "Oh I only made it," Vanderbank said, "in reference to his modesty." Beyond the lawn the house was before him, old, square, red-roofed, well assured of its right to the place it took up in the world.

This was a considerable space--in the little world at least of Suffolk--and the look of possession had everywhere mixed with it, in the form of old windows and doors, the tone of old red surfaces, the style of old white facings, the age of old high creepers, the long confirmation of time.
Suggestive of panelled rooms, of precious mahogany, of portraits of women dead, of coloured china glimmering through glass doors and delicate silver reflected on bared tables, the thing was one of those impressions of a particular period that it takes two centuries to produce.

"Fancy," the young man incoherently exclaimed, "his caring to leave anything so loveable as all this to come up and live with US!" The girl also for a little lost herself.

"Oh you don't know what it is--the charm comes out so as one stays.

Little by little it grows and grows.