An hour passed, and the downstairs rooms at the hotel grew dim and were almost deserted, while the little box-like squares above them were brilliantly irradiated.

Some forty or fifty people were going to bed.
The thump of jugs set down on the floor above could be heard and the clink of china, for there was not as thick a partition between the rooms as one might wish, so Miss Allan, the elderly lady who had been playing bridge, determined, giving the wall a smart rap with her knuckles.

It was only matchboard, she decided, run up to make many little rooms of one large one.

Her grey petticoats slipped to the ground, and, stooping, she folded her clothes with neat, if not loving fingers, screwed her hair into a plait, wound her father's great gold watch, and opened the complete works of Wordsworth.

She was reading the "Prelude," partly because she always read the "Prelude" abroad, and partly because she was engaged in writing a short _Primer_ _of_ _English_ _Literature_--_Beowulf_ _to_ _Swinburne_--which would have a paragraph on Wordsworth.