Mrs. Thompson: A Novel

by W. B. Maxwell

Enid rose, buttoned her coat, and began to pull on her grey reindeer gloves.

"Mother! My old room—is it empty, or are you using it for anything?"

"Oh, Dick uses that, dear."

"And the dressing-room?"

"He uses that, too."

"Would you mind—would he mind if I went in and looked round?"

"No.... Of course not."

"Only for a peep. Then I'll come back—and say good-bye."

But she was a long time in the other rooms; and when she returned Mrs. Marsden saw and affected not to see that she had been crying.

The warmth of the fire after the cold of the street, or the sight of her old home after a few months in her new one, had properly thawed elegant, long-nosed Enid. She sank on her knees by the sofa, flung her arms round the neck of her mother, and kissed her again and again; and Mrs. Marsden felt what in vain she had waited for during so many years—her child's heart beating with expansive sympathy against her breast.