She had been tidying her pet perennial border, and my father had called her hastily, and she had left it half finished, and had forgotten the fork.

A few minutes more or less were of no great importance to me, for it was very early, so I finished the border quite neatly, and took the fork indoors.
I put it in a corner of the hall where the light was growing stronger and making familiar objects clear.

In a house like ours and amongst people like us, furniture was not chopped and changed and decorated as it is now.

The place had looked like this ever since I could remember, and it would look like this tomorrow morning, though my eyes would not see it.

I stood stupidly by the hall table where my father's gloves lay neatly one upon the other beside his hat.