They neither of them quite dared to attack the other, and so sat with their faces close together, saying the rudest things.

Aunt Barbara would certainly have seen how inimitably his father and he had, in their interview just now, resembled the two seals.
And then he became aware that all the time, au fond, he had thought about nothing but Sylvia, and of Sylvia, not as the subject of quarrel, but as just Sylvia, the singing Sylvia, with a hand on his shoulder.
The winter sun was warm on the south terrace of the house, when, an hour later, he strolled out, according to arrangement, with his mother.

It had melted the rime of the night before that lay now on the grass in threads of minute diamonds, though below the terrace wall, and on the sunk rims of the empty garden beds it still persisted in outline of white heraldry.

A few monthly roses, weak, pink blossoms, weary with the toil of keeping hope alive till the coming of spring, hung dejected heads in the sunk garden, where the hornbeam hedge that carried its russet leaves unfallen, shaded them from the wind.

Here, too, a few bulbs had pricked their way above ground, and stood with stout, erect horns daintily capped with rime.