The Crystal Cup by Gertrude Atherton

Elsie had never been able to refurnish her old house, but she could have pink lights in the dining-room, and a bowl of pink roses on the table to draw attention from the worn linen and serviceable plates. Colored servants had long since relieved Mrs. Pelham of the "fine china" and Bohemian glass of palmier days. The simple platters and vegetable-dishes were of indestructible silver and she polished them herself.

Gita, whose table was overloaded with massive silver, fit only for a banquet hall, and who had dropped one of the forks on a priceless dish, the fragments removed by a muttering Topper, felt a sharp pang of homesickness: she was reminded of her mother's pathetic attempts to give beauty to the homeliest surroundings, if the result were but a bowl of wild flowers or a worn but embroidered kimono thrown over the bald sofa of a pension.