He was editing a series of reprints for the Cambridge University Press, and what mortal man could want more than a good wife and son, a cottage to live in, a fair cook, unlimited pipes, no debts, and the best of English literature to browse in?
The rural afternoon, especially, when he smoked and grubbed and divagated as he pleased, was alone enough to make the five-and-twenty years of "swink" worth while.
Mrs.Roughsedge stayed to give very particular orders to the house-parlormaid about the doctor's tea, to open a window in the tiny drawing-room, and to put up in brown paper a pair of bed-socks that she had just finished knitting for an old man in one of the parish-houses.

Then she joined her son, who was already waiting for her--impatiently--in the garden.
Hugh Roughsedge had only just returned from a month's stay in London, made necessary by those new Army examinations which his soul detested.
By dint of strenuous coaching he had come off moderately victorious, and had now returned home for a week's extra leave before rejoining his regiment.

One of the first questions on his tongue, as his mother instantly noticed, had been a question as to Miss Mallory.

Was she still at Beechcote?
Had his mother seen anything of her?
Yes, she was still at Beechcote.

Mrs.Roughsedge, however, had seen her but seldom and slightly since her son's departure for London.