Alice sat asleep in her old farmhouse rocking-chair, with an inelegant darning-basket on the table by her side.

The whole effect of the room was as bare and squalid to Theron's newly informed eye as the atmosphere was offensive to his nostrils.

He coughed sharply, and his wife sat up and looked at the clock.

It was after eleven.
"Where on earth have you been ?" she asked, with a yawn, turning up the wick of her sewing-lamp again.
"You ought never to turn down a light like that," said Theron, with a complaining note in his voice.

"It smells up the whole place.