D. H. Lawrence's 'Odour of Chrysanthemums'

But at last Annie sighed, and gave in. She glanced at her
waggon of slippers, and loathed it. Hesitating, faltering, she
dragged it to a corner and left it, turning plaintively to her
mother.

"Read us a tale, mother!" she pleaded.

Her mother had bent her head over her sewing. If there
was one thing she shrank from doing, it was from lifting up her
voice, which was like a child in rebellion, and would need all
her efforts to command; sulky, it was, with shut lips.

"Shall you, mother?" insisted the girl. John, under the
sofa, lay still to hear the answer. The mother looked at the
clock. It was a quarter to seven, and they were not to be
undressed for bed till seven. A quarter of an hour may be an
age.

"Which one?" she asked, temporising.

"The Fir Tree!" and gladly the girl turned to the
dresser and took from one of the drawers an old volume of
Andersen.

"Now look," she said, "let me get it!" and she quickly
found the place. The child's demonstration of gaiety loosened
the lips of the mother's silence, and she began to read, listening
to the sound of her own voice. John crept out like a frog from
under the sofa. His mother looked up:

"Yes," she said. "Just look at those shirt-sleeves!"

The boy held them out to look at them, and said nothing.
The reproof was a sign that the mother had in some measure
recovered her usual equilibrium, and as such was grateful. The
tale began well, but somebody called in a hoarse voice down
the line, and the old silence woke up and bristled in the room,
till two people had gone by outside, talking. Then the mother
continued to read, but it was a mere barrenness of words. The
same subtle determination that had kept the children playing
made the mother read the tale to the end, though it had no
meaning for anybody. At last it was finished, and:

"There!" she exclaimed in relief. "You must go to bed
now -- it's past seven o'clock."

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