It was so utterly and dishearteningly foreign to the orderly
arrangement, the meticulous neatness of the home wherein Thompson had
grown to young manhood under the tutelage of the prim spinsters that he
could scarcely accept as a reality that this, henceforth, was to be his
abode.
He could only stand, with a feeling in his throat that was new in his
experience of emotions, staring in dismay at this forlorn habitation
abandoned to wind and weather, to the rats and the birds.