But they had never known each other, and were so different that neither had understood the other.

The son, however, was ready to confess to himself that the chief fault had been with himself.

It was natural, he thought, that a father's regard should be deadened by such conduct as his had been, and natural that an old man should not believe in the quick repentance and improvement of a young one.
He hired a gig and drove himself over from Cambridge to Folking.

As he got near to the place, and passed along the dikes, and looked to the right and left down the droves, and trotted at last over the Folking bridge across the Middle Wash, the country did not seem to him to be so unattractive as of yore; and when he recognised the faces of the neighbours, when one of the tenants spoke to him kindly, and the girls dropped a curtsey as he passed, certain soft regrets began to crop up in his mind.

After all, there is a comfort in the feeling of property--not simply its money comfort, but in the stability and reputation of a recognised home.