Part One - Old Mr. Welles and Young Mr. Marsh

The older man had a friendly smile for the facetious intention of this.
"I guess I won't have anything that'd be worth locking doors on," he
said. He looked about him still smiling, his pleasant old eyes full of a
fresh satisfaction in what he saw. The room was charming to his gaze,
cheerful and homey. "I don't believe I'm going to have anything to
complain of, with the folks that live in this house," he said, "any more
than with any of the rest of it."

The other nodded. "Yes, it's a very good room," he agreed. After a
longer inspection, he added with a slight accent of surprise, "An oddly
good room; stunning! Look at the color in those curtains and the walls,
and the arrangement of those prints over that Chippendale sewing-table.
I wonder if it's accidental. You wouldn't think you'd find anybody up
here who could achieve it consciously."

He got to his feet with a vigorous precision of movement which the other
admired. "Well, he's grown to be considerable of a man," he thought to
himself. "A pity his father couldn't have lived to see it, all that
aliveness that had bothered them so much, down at last where he's got
his grip on it. And enough of it, plenty of it, oceans of it, left so
that he is still about forty times more alive than anybody else." He
looked tolerantly with his tired elderly amusement at the other,
stepping about, surveying the room and every object in it.