They flowed on in a warm, mute rhetoric, till suddenly the Comic Spirit was there, and patriotic rapture began to see itself.

She, the wanderer, the exile, what did she know of England--or England of her?
What did she know of this village even, this valley in which she had pitched her tent?
She had taken an old house, because it had pleased her fancy, because it had Tudor gables, pretty panelling, and a sundial.

But what natural link had she with it, or with these peasants and countrymen?
She had no true roots here.

What she had done was mere whim and caprice.

She was an alien, like anybody else--like the new men and prowling millionaires, who bought old English properties, moved thereto by a feeling which was none the less snobbish because it was also sentimental.
She drew herself up--rebelling hotly--yet not seeing how to disentangle herself from these associates.