Auntie Robbo by Ann Scott-Moncrieff — Read

Nethermuir was the name of Auntie Robbo's house. It was about twelve miles from Edinburgh at the foot of the hills, and had a wide view over flat lowland moor to the city and the river Forth.

It was a square squat house with modest-sized windows. And it was clothed, all but its roof, in a neat jacket of ivy. It had a white wooden porch, and in front of the dining-room and drawing-room windows two white summer seats made of curly iron, and in the middle of its garden an enormous white flagstaff. You really noticed these things before the modest house--they were so staringly white. Auntie Robbo had them painted every spring; she said they made the place look shipshape.