Mrs. Thompson: A Novel

by W. B. Maxwell

The rooms were comfortably furnished and brightly ornamented, and all had a homelike soothing aspect to their busy owner. To other people they might seem lacking in the studious taste by which the rich and idle can make of each apartment a harmonious picture. Here money had been spent profusely but hurriedly, at odd times and not all together: whatever at the moment had appeared to be desirable or necessary had been at once procured. So that comfort and luxury rather jostled each other; the Sheraton cabinets which were so charming to look at were apt to get hidden by the leather armchairs which were so soothing to have a nap in; and the Chelsea china in the glass-fronted corner cupboard completely lost itself behind the Japanese screen that guarded against draughts from the old sashed window.

"Enid, may I come in?" Mrs. Thompson tapped softly at the door of her daughter's dressing-room.

"Mother dear, is that you?" The door was opened, and the two women embraced affectionately.

Miss Thompson, in her fawn-coloured coat and skirt, feathered hat and spotted veil, was a tall, slim, graceful figure, ready now to adorn the hired landau from Mr. Young's livery stables. Her hair was dark and her complexion naturally pallid; with a long straight nose in a narrow face, she resembled her dead father, but what was sheep-like and stupid in him was rather pretty in the girl;—altogether, a decent-looking, fairly attractive young woman of twenty-two, but not likely to obtain from the world at large the gaze of admiring satisfaction with which an adoring mother regarded her.

"The carriage isn't there yet," said Mrs. Thompson, "and I promise not to keep you waiting. I'll change my dress in a flash of lightning."

"What did you think of wearing this afternoon?"

Mrs. Thompson proposed to put on her new mauve gown and the hat with the lilac blossoms; but her daughter made alternative suggestions.

In the shop Mrs. Thompson carried a perpetual black; outside the shop she was perhaps unduly fond of vivid tints, and it was Enid's custom to check this rainbow tendency.

"Very well," said Mrs. Thompson, "it shall be the brown again;" and she laughed good-humouredly. "I bow to your judgment, my dear, if I don't endorse its correctness."