Stephen’s house was The House by the River, which stood with one other in an isolated communion between Hammerton Terrace and the Island. The bank swung out widely above the Terrace, so that Stephen’s house and its neighbour were on a miniature promontory, commanding unobstructed the ample curve of the river to Hammersmith Bridge, a mile away. The houses were old and ill-appointed within, with rattling sashes and loose doors, but dignified and beautiful without, modest old brick draped generously with green. And they were full of tall windows drinking in the sun and looking away to the south towards the hills about Putney and Roehampton, or westwards to the remote green of Richmond Hill. They were rich with sunshine and an air that was not London’s.

Stephen looked up at his high old house and was proud of it. He was proud of the thick ivy and creeper all over it and the green untidy garden below it, and the pretty view of the dining-room, where the light was on, a lonely island of gold in the dusk, seen delightfully through matted ropes of creeper.