She was fond of Mary, and leant on her strangely, considering their relative ages.

For the rest, she toiled with indifferent success at household tasks, and was grateful for having a husband so absorbed in distant speculations that he was insensible of the near discomfort of a badly-cooked dinner or a buttonless shirt.
The gardens of the houses opened on a lane which was a sort of rubbish-shoot for the houses that gave upon it.

Across the lane was a row of stabling belonging to far more important houses than Wistaria Terrace.

Beyond the stables and stable yards were old gardens with shady stretches of turf and forest trees enclosed within their walls.

Beyond the gardens rose the fine old-fashioned houses of the Mall, big Georgian houses that looked in front across the roadway at the line of elm-trees that bordered the canal.