There were no variously coloured hatpins on her dressing-table; no scent-bottles; no narrow curved pairs of scissors; no great variety of shoes and boots; no silk petticoats lying on the chairs.

The room was extremely neat.

There seemed to be two pairs of everything.

The writing-table, however, was piled with manuscript, and a table was drawn out to stand by the arm-chair on which were two separate heaps of dark library books, in which there were many slips of paper sticking out at different degrees of thickness.

Miss Allan had asked Rachel to come in out of kindness, thinking that she was waiting about with nothing to do.