That mother was living still, and her own large black easy-chair, where she sat knitting through the livelong day, was now set ready for her at the breakfast-table, by her son's side, a sleek tortoise-shell cat acting as provisional incumbent.
'Good morning, Mamsey! why, you're looking as fresh as a daisy this morning.

You're getting young again', said Mr.Dempster, looking up from his newspaper when the little old lady entered.

A very little old lady she was, with a pale, scarcely wrinkled face, hair of that peculiar white which tells that the locks have once been blond, a natty pure white cap on her head, and a white shawl pinned over her shoulders.

You saw at a glance that she had been a mignonne blonde, strangely unlike her tall, ugly, dingy-complexioned son; unlike her daughter-in-law, too, whose large-featured brunette beauty seemed always thrown into higher relief by the white presence of little Mamsey.

The unlikeness between Janet and her mother-in-law went deeper than outline and complexion, and indeed there was little sympathy between them, for old Mrs.Dempster had not yet learned to believe that her son, Robert, would have gone wrong if he had married the right woman--a meek woman like herself, who would have borne him children, and been a deft, orderly housekeeper.