The School Queens by L.T. Meade

Laburnum Villa, in the suburb of Clapham, was, in the new Mrs. Martin's eyes, quite a delightful place. She had never appreciated her first husband, Professor Howland, but she thoroughly appreciated Bo-peep, and after her own fashion was fond of him. He gave her comforts. She had lived so long without comforts that she appreciated these good things of life to the full. She had never really been much attached to Maggie, who was too like her own father and too unlike herself to allow of the existence of any sympathy between them. Maggie, even before Mrs. Howland met Martin the Shepherd's Bush grocer, had been more or less a thorn in the flesh to her mother.

Laburnum Villa was furnished, as James Martin expressed it, with an eye to comfort. There were solid arm-chairs with deep seats and good springs, and these were covered with maroon-colored leather. There were thick, maroon-colored curtains to the dining-room windows, and all the furniture of the room was of solid oak. There was a rich Turkey carpet on the floor, and prints of different hunting scenes -- by no means bad in their way -- hanging on the walls. The paint-work of the room was of dull red, and the paper was of the same tone. It was a small room, and the furniture was large and heavy, but it represented in Martin's eyes the very essence of comfort. The fireplace was modern, and when it was piled up with goodly lumps of coal it caused a warmth to pervade the whole room which, as Mrs. Martin expressed it, was very stimulating. The house had electric light, which both Mr. and Mrs. Martin considered distinguished.