ODOUR OF CHRYSANTHEMUMS
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"No, he isn't. But it's a quarter to five! Did you see
2
anything of him ? "3
The child became serious. She looked at her mother with
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large, wistful blue eyes. 5
"No, mother, I've never seen him. Why ? Has he come
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up an' gone past, to Old Brinsley
? He hasn't, mother, 'cos I
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never saw him."*8
"He'd watch that," said the mother bitterly, "he'd take
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care as you didn't see him, child*
. But you may depend upon
10
it, he's seated in the ' Prince o' Wales.'
He wouldn't be this
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late." 12
The girl looked at her mother piteously. 13
"Let's have our teas*
, mother, should we ?" said she. 14
The mother called John to table. She opened the
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door once more and looked out across the darkness of the
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lines. All was deserted: she could not hear the winding-
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engines. 18
"Perhaps," she said to herself, "he's stopped to get some
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ripping*
done." 20
They sat down to tea. John, at the end of the table near
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the door, was almost lost in the darkness. Their faces were
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hidden from each other. The girl crouched against the fender
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slowly moving a thick piece of bread before the fire. The lad,
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his face a dusky mark on the shadow, sat watching her, trans-
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figured as she was in the red glow. 26
I do think it's beautiful to look in the fire," said the
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child. 28
"Do you ?" said her mother. "Why ?" 29
"It's so red, and full of little hot caves--and it feels so nice,
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and you can fair smell it."*31
"It'll want mending directly,"*
replied her mother, "and
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then
if your father comes he'll carry on and say there never is
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a
fire when a man comes home sweating from the pit. A public-
34
house is always warm enough." 35
There was silence till the boy said complainingly : "Make
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haste, our Annie."*37
"Well, I am ! I can't make the fire do it no faster*
, can I ?" 38
"She keeps waflin*
it about so's to make 'er slow," grumbled
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the boy. 40
"Don't have such an evil imagination, child," replied the
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mother. 42
Soon the room was busy in the darkness with the crisp
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sound of crunching. The mother ate very little. She drank
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her tea determinedly, and sat thinking. When she rose her
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