An American clock ticked on the mantel-shelf, a fire burned in the grate behind a high wire screen.

The unshaded gas-lights gave the room a dreary aspect it need not have had otherwise.
The only occupant of the room was Mary Gray, who sat at a small table working a typewriter.

She had pulled a gas-jet down low over her head, and the light of it was on her hair, bringing out bronze lights in it, on her neck, showing its whiteness and roundness.

The machine clicked away busily.

Sheet after sheet was pulled from it and dropped into a basket.