Perhaps you can go up presently ?' She murmured an assent, and began to lay the table.
In a few minutes she ascended very quietly and listened at the girls' door.

Her report was that she could hear no sound; they must both be sleeping.
An hour went by.

Mother and son made no pretence of conversing.

Gilbert kept an open book before him.

Rain had begun to fall, and the sky darkened as the minutes ticked themselves away by the clock on the mantel-piece.
Then there was a sound on the stairs.