"Is she going to live here ?" he asked, almost irreverently, when he was first told that she was in the house.

"I wish she were," said Lady Scroope.

"I am childless, and she is as dear to me as a daughter." Then Fred apologized, and expressed himself as quite willing that Sophie Mellerby should live and die at Scroope.
The evening was dreadfully dull.

It had seemed to him that the house was darker, and gloomier, and more comfortless than ever.

He had hurried over to see a dying man, and now there was nothing for him to do but to kick his heels.