round the corner had her cards arranged in long ladders
before her, with Susan sitting near to sympathise but not to correct,
and the merchants and the miscellaneous people who had never been
discovered to possess names were stretched in their arm-chairs with
their newspapers on their knees. The conversation in these circumstances
was very gentle, fragmentary, and intermittent, but the room was full of
the indescribable stir of life. Every now and then the moth, which was
now grey of wing and shiny of thorax, whizzed over their heads, and hit
the lamps with a thud.

A young woman put down her needlework and exclaimed, "Poor creature! it
would be kinder to kill it." But nobody seemed disposed to rouse himself
in order to kill the moth. They watched it dash from lamp to lamp,
because they were comfortable, and had nothing to do.

On the sofa, beside the chess-players, Mrs. Elliot was imparting a new
stitch in knitting to Mrs. Thornbury, so that their heads came very near
together, and were only to be distinguished by the old lace cap which
Mrs. Thornbury wore in the evening. Mrs. Elliot was an expert at
knitting, and disclaimed a compliment to that effect with evident pride.

"I suppose we're all proud of something," she said, "and I'm proud of my
knitting. I think things like that run in families. We all knit well. I
had an uncle who knitted his own socks to the day of his death--and
he did it better than any of his daughters, dear old gentleman. Now I
wonder that you, Miss Allan, who use your eyes so much, don't take
up knitting in the evenings. You'd find it such a relief, I should
say--such a rest to the eyes--and the bazaars are so glad of things."
Her voice dropped into the smooth half-conscious tone of the expert
knitter; the words came gently one after another. "As much as I do I
can always dispose of, which is a comfort, for then I feel that I am not
wasting my time--"

Miss Allan, being thus addressed, shut her novel and observed the others
placidly for a time. At last she said, "It is surely not natural to
leave your wife because she happens to be in love with you. But that--as
far as I can make out--is what the gentleman in my story does."

"Tut, tut, that doesn't sound good--no, that doesn't sound at all
natural," murmured the knitters in their absorbed voices.

"Still, it's the kind of book people call very clever," Miss Allan
added.

"_Maternity_--by Michael Jessop--I presume," Mr. Elliot put in, for