The clapboards of the simple story-and-a-half cottage had faded to a dull gray, but the little plot of ground in which the house stood was cultivated with scrupulous care.
The lawn was always fresh and crisp, the borders of privet were neatly trimmed and the flower beds disposed effectively.

A woman would have seen at once that this was a man's work; it was all a little too regular, suggesting engineering methods rather than polite gardening.
Once you had stepped inside the cottage the absence of the feminine touch was even more strikingly apparent.

Book shelves crowded to the door,--open shelves, that had the effect of pressing at once upon the visitor the most formidable of dingy volumes, signifying that such things were of moment to the master of the house.

There was no parlor, for the room that had originally been used as such was now shelf-hung and book-lined, and served as an approach to the study into which it opened.

The furniture was old and frayed as to upholstery, and the bric-a-brac on an old-fashioned what-not was faintly murmurous of some long-vanished feminine hand.