“My dear, is that you?” said Mrs Waldron. “I did not hear you come in. What a dull, dreary day it is! You have not got wet, I hope?”
“It was not actually raining. My frock got no harm,” Charlotte replied.
But her voice was dull and dreary like the day, and though, as she had just said of the weather, “not actually raining,” the mother’s ears perceived that tears were not very far off.
“Don’t go to lessons again immediately you come in,” she said. ”‘All work and no play’ makes dull girls as well as dull boys. Come into the drawing-room. Jerry came in looking so shivery that I am going to give him a cup of my afternoon tea. Come too, dear, and let us three have a few minutes cosily together. The other boys won’t be home yet.”
Charlotte hesitated.
“Mamma,” she said, “I must work hard—harder than ever; and then—I changed my blue frock immediately. You know I promised you I would, and if any one should come in I would not look very nice,” and she glanced at the old brown dress.
“Nonsense, dear. It is most unlikely that any one will come on such a day. And take my word for it, you will work far better if you give yourself a little interval—a pleasant little interval.”
Mrs Waldron opened the drawing-room door as she spoke, and Charlotte followed her. It did look pleasant and inviting, for well-worn as was much of the furniture, simple—in these days of plush and lace and gorgeous Eastern draperies—as were the few additions that had been made to it from time to time, Charlotte’s mother possessed the touch that seems born with some people, of making a room attractive. Her extreme, exquisite neatness had to do with it—the real underlying spirit of order, which has nothing in common with cold primness or the vulgar hiding away from observation of the occupations of daily life; and joined to this a keen perception of colour, a quick eye and hand for all combinations which give pleasure.
“I can always tell when mamma has been in a room,” Charlotte would say, rather dolefully. “I wonder if I shall ever learn to give things the look she does.”
The tea-table was drawn up near the fire, and Jerry was seated on a low chair beside it.