It was a pale September day.

In the country, among English woods and heaths the sun was still strong, and trees and bracken, withered heath, and reddening berries, burned and sparkled beneath it.

But in the dingy bedroom of a dingy Bloomsbury hotel, with a film of fog over everything outside, there was no sun to be seen; the plane trees beyond the windows were nearly leafless; and the dead leaves scudding and whirling along the dusty, airless streets, under a light wind, gave the last dreary touch to the scene that Nelly Sarratt was looking at.

She was standing at a window, listlessly staring at some houses opposite, and the unlovely strip of garden which lay between her and the houses.

Bridget Cookson was sitting at a table a little way behind her, mending some gloves.
The sisters had been four days in London.