Again and again there came back to him the memory of the grandmother who wore the black net cap trimmed with purple ribbons.
Apparently she had remained to the last almost contumaciously British.
She had kept photographs of Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort on her bedroom mantelpiece, and had made caustic, international comparisons.
But she had seen places like this, and her stories became realities to him now.

But she had never thought of the possibility of any chance of his being shown about by the lord of the manor himself--lunching, by gee! and talking to them about typewriters.

He vaguely knew that if the grandmother had not emigrated, and he had been born in Dunstan village, he would naturally have touched his forehead to Mount Dunstan and the vicar when they passed him in the road, and conversation between them would have been an unlikely thing.

Somehow things had been changed by Destiny--perhaps for the whole of them, as years had passed.
What he felt when he stood in the picture gallery neither of his companions could at first guess.

He ceased to talk, and wandered silently about.