The three-quarters of an acre of garden were mainly devoted to the culture of potatoes, though under the parlour window Mrs Jimson had a plot of sweet-smelling herbs, and lines of lank sunflowers fringed the path that led to the front door.

It was Mrs Jimson who received me as I descended from the station fly--a large red woman with hair bleached by constant exposure to weather, clad in a gown which, both in shape and material, seemed to have been modelled on a chintz curtain.

She was a good kindly soul, and as proud as Punch of her house.
'We follow the simple life here, Mr Brand,' she said.

'You must take us as you find us.' I assured her that I asked for nothing better, and as I unpacked in my fresh little bedroom with a west wind blowing in at the window I considered that I had seen worse quarters.
I had bought in London a considerable number of books, for I thought that, as I would have time on my hands, I might as well do something about my education.

They were mostly English classics, whose names I knew but which I had never read, and they were all in a little flat-backed series at a shilling apiece.