Mortimer's cheerfulness returned, and he commenced reading the poem at the place where he had interrupted himself. Just as he finished the last verse, telling how, ages long ago,
"The lovers fled away into the storm,"
Mrs. Snarle awoke with a jerk, and went to knitting as though she had been doing nothing else the whole evening—a harmless subterfuge peculiar to old people.
XI.
Of making many books there is no end.
Ecclesiastes xii., 12.