Old Ugly-Face by Talbot Mundy

Something happened to the room when Nancy Strong entered and closed the door behind her, glancing around swiftly before she looked at Elsa. She even brought the grand piano into harmony with all the rest of it. Gray-haired, gray-eyed, gallantly old-fashioned, even dowdy. She wore one of those dependable brown wool frocks that Department Stores can be trusted to ship to customers of twenty-five years' standing. Woolen stockings. Tidy ankles. Scarred knuckles. Hands like a horseman's. Her face had no room left on it for ugliness, there was so much character. She was beautiful from having faced trouble and stood up to it and beaten it, times without number. A stormy-weather woman, matter-of-fact in her greeting of Elsa: "Why did you get up? Sit down again. How did you get here?"

She took a chair beside Elsa facing the fire. The cat leaped into her lap.