He was surprised, flattered, delighted, but entirely puzzled.
The cottages were begun immediately.

They were near the river, which divided the Slumberleigh and Vandon properties.

Ruth often went to look at them.

It did her good to see them rising, strong and firm, though hideous to behold, on higher ground than the poor dilapidated hovels at the water's edge, where fever was always breaking out, which yet made, as they supported each other in their crookedness, and leaned over their own wavering reflections, such a picturesque sketch that it seemed a shame to supplant them by such brand new red brick, such blue tiling, such dreadful little porches.
Ruth drew the old condemned cottages, with the long lines of pollarded marshy meadow, and distant bridge and mill in the background, but it was a sketch she never cared to look at afterwards.

She was constantly drawing now.