Cases of stuffed birds ornamented every available recess; mahogany and horsehair chairs were set stiffly round the walls at even distances.

A heap of folded moth-eaten rugs and wraps disfigured a side-table, and beneath it stood a row of clogs and goloshes.
Round the walls hung full-length portraits of an early Victorian date.
The artist had spent a couple of months at Barracombe fifty years since, and had painted three generations of the Crewys family, who were then gathered together beneath its hospitable roof.

His diligence had been more remarkable than his ability.

At any other time John Crewys would have laughed outright at this collection of works of art.
But the air was charged with tragedy, and he could not laugh.

His seriousness commended him favourably, had he known it, to the two old ladies, his cousins, Sir Timothy's half-sisters, who were seated beside the great log fire, and who regarded him with approving eyes.
For their stranger cousin had that extreme gentleness and courtesy of manner and regard, which sometimes accompanies unusual strength, whether of character or of person.
It was a pity, old Lady Belstone whispered to her spinster sister, that John was not a Crewys, for he had a remarkably fine head, and had he been but a little taller and slimmer, would have been a credit to the family.
Certainly John was not a Crewys.