“It’s a biggish sort of place, isn’t it?” Nancy said.
“But it’s rather lovely, don’t you think so?” Dick asked anxiously. “These old places are getting increasingly hard to find,—real old 193 homes, dignified and beautiful, within a reasonable distance from town.”
“It is lovely,” Nancy said, “it could be made perfectly wonderful to live in. I can see this big hall—furnished in mahogany or even carved oak that was old enough. Thank heaven, we’re no longer slaves to a period in our decorating; we can use anything that’s beautiful and suitable and not intrinsically incongruous with a clear conscience.”
“Come up-stairs.”
Nancy lingered on the landing of the fine old staircase, white banistered with a mahogany hand-rail, that turned only once before it led into the region up-stairs.
“I’d rather see the kitchen,” she said.
“The kitchen isn’t the thing that I’m proudest of. Its plumbing is early English, or Scottish, I’m afraid. I think this arrangement up here is delightful. See these front suites, one on either side of the hall. Bedroom, dressing-room, sitting-room. Which do you like best? I thought perhaps I might take the one that overlooks the orchard.”
Nancy stopped still on her way from window to window.
“Dick Thorndyke, whose house is this?” she demanded.