He took out his watch.
"I shall speak," he said, carefully examining it, "for four minutes." "Let's sit," said Peter.

"It's warm enough now, in all conscience." They sat upon an old stone bench below the turret.

Peter leant back with his black head resting against the wall, his felt hat tipped over his eyes and his pipe in his mouth.

He looked comfortable, even good-humoured.
"Go ahead," he murmured.
"To understand the case from your mother's point of view, I am afraid it is necessary," said John, "to take a rapid glance at the circumstances of her life which have--which have made her what she is.

She came here, as a child, didn't she, when her father died; and though he had just succeeded to the earldom, he died a very poor man?
Your father, as her guardian, spared no pains, nor expense for that matter, in educating and maintaining her.