"See here, Aunt Fanny, there's not a bit of use your bothering about those dishes tonight.

What's the use of a butler and three maids if--" "Just let me alone." He obeyed, and could still hear a pathetic sniffing from the dining room as he went up the stairs.
"By George!" he grunted, as he reached his own room; and his thought was that living with a person so sensitive to kindly raillery might prove lugubrious.

He whistled, long and low, then went to the window and looked through the darkness to the great silhouette of his grandfather's house.

Lights were burning over there, upstairs; probably his newly arrived uncle was engaged in talk with the Major.
George's glance lowered, resting casually upon the indistinct ground, and he beheld some vague shapes, unfamiliar to him.

Formless heaps, they seemed; but, without much curiosity, he supposed that sewer connections or water pipes might be out of order, making necessary some excavations.
He hoped the work would not take long; he hated to see that sweep of lawn made unsightly by trenches and lines of dirt, even temporarily.