1 There isn't a thing I can do, he began again.
2 He rummaged in the drawer for a sheet of paper, found one, and began to write.
3 All constraint had vanished between the two, and they began to talk easily and simply.
4 She went out of the kitchen and Mattie, rising, began to clear the dishes from the table.
5 The next moment they sank to her flushed cheeks and she began to mount the stairs ahead of Zeena.
6 She began to cry, and he felt as if every one of her tears were pouring over him like burning lead.
7 He helped himself mechanically and began to eat; then disgust took him by the throat and he laid down his fork.
8 "I told you I ain't the kind to be afraid" she tossed back, almost indifferently; and suddenly she began to walk on with a rapid step.
9 When warmth began to radiate from the stove, and the first ray of sunlight lay on the kitchen floor, Ethan's dark thoughts melted in the mellower air.
10 She poured out her tea, added a great deal of milk to it, helped herself largely to pie and pickles, and made the familiar gesture of adjusting her false teeth before she began to eat.
11 Then, when the loading finally began, a sleety rain was coming down once more, and the tree trunks were so slippery that it took twice as long as usual to lift them and get them in place on the sledge.
12 The clock ticked above the dresser, a piece of charred wood fell now and then in the stove, and the faint sharp scent of the geraniums mingled with the odour of Ethan's smoke, which began to throw a blue haze about the lamp and to hang its greyish cobwebs in the shadowy corners of the room.