Blizzard and hail and harvest frost brought them to the verge of ruin now and then but could not drive them over it.

They set their lips, cut down the grocery bill, and, working still harder, went on again.

A good many of them had, as she knew, come from England.
Then Weston appeared to remember his dinner, and made a little vague gesture which seemed to indicate that there was no more to be said.
"I don't want to hear about drains and deeper tillage while we let every foreigner pour his wheat and chilled beef into our market.

It's nonsense," he asserted.
Some one started another topic; and an hour or so later most of the little party strolled out on the terrace in front of the house.

It was almost dark now, but the evening was no more than pleasantly cool, and Ida sat down on an old stone seat.
Scarthwaite faced toward the west, and she looked out across a deep, green valley toward the sweep of upland and heather moor that cut black and solemn against a paling saffron glow.