There used to be primroses--but this was autumn.

Primroses come in the spring.
Thirty years--but The Rigs was not changed, at least not outwardly.

Old Mrs.Reid had loved the garden, and Great-aunt Alison, and Jean after her, had carried on her work.
The little house looked just as Peter Reid remembered it.
He would go in and ask to see it, he told himself.
He would tell these Jardines that the house was his and he meant to live in it himself.

They wouldn't like it, but he couldn't help that.
Perhaps he would be able to persuade them to go almost at once.

He would make it worth their while.
He was just going to lift the latch of the gate when the front door opened and shut, and Jean Jardine came down the flagged path.