The drops of the chandeliers twinkled like little stars in the sunshine; the brass birdcages were undimmed by any shadow of dulness.

To Georgy's mind the gothic villa was the very perfection of a dwelling-place.

The Barlingford housekeepers were wont to render their homes intolerable by extreme neatness.

Georgy still believed in the infallibility of her native town, and the primness of Barlingford reigned supreme in the gothic villa.

There were no books scattered on the polished walnut-wood tables in the drawing-room, no cabinets crammed with scraps of old china, no pictures, no queer old Indian feather-screens, no marvels of Chinese carving in discoloured ivory; none of those traces which the footsteps of the "collector" leave behind him.