ODOUR OF CHRYSANTHEMUMS

" It's so red, and full of little caves -- and it feels
so nice, and you can fair smell it."*

" It'll want mending directly,"* replied her mother,
" and then if your father comes he'll carry on and
say there never is a fire when a man comes home
sweating from the pit. -- A public-house is always
warm enough."

There was silence till the boy said complainingly:
" Make haste, our Annie."*

" Well, I am doing ! I can't make the fire do it
no faster, can I ? "*

" She keeps wafflin'* it about so's to make 'er
slow," grumbled the boy.

" Don't have such an evil imagination, child,"
replied the mother.

Soon the room was busy in the darkness with the
crisp sound of crunching. The mother ate very
little. She drank her tea determinedly, and sat
thinking. When she rose her anger was evident in
the stern unbending of her head. She looked at
the pudding in the fender, and broke out:

" It is a scandalous thing as a man can't even
come home to his dinner!* If it's crozzled* up to a
cinder I don't see why I should care. Past his very
door he goes to get to a public-house, and here I sit
with his dinner waiting for him ---- "

She went out. As she dropped piece after piece
of coal on the red fire, the shadows fell on the walls,
till the room was almost in total darkness.

" I canna see,"* grumbled the invisible John. In
spite of herself, the mother laughed.

" You know the way to your mouth," she said.
She set the dustpan outside the door. When she