Bess of the Woods by Warwick Deeping

The white curtains with red roses flowered on them were half drawn over the windows of Miss Hardacre's bedroom. Miss Jilian's room smelled mildly of musk and lavender-water, and there were flowers in the vases upon the mantle-shelf and in the cream-colored Wedgwood bowl upon the French occasional table. The bed was spread with a red silk quilt, the turned-down sheets looking white as milk when contrasted with the expanse of red below. The panels on the walls were painted with garlands, cherubs' heads, and silly, fat Cupids straddling lambs. The door of the robe-cupboard was open, showing a hanging-garden of gowns.

On a couch by one of the windows lay Miss Jilian herself, wrapped in a pale-green bed-gown, red slippers on her feet, and one of Mr. Richardson's novels in her hands. Through the open window came the constant drone of the bees that were working the honeysuckle under the window-ledge. The monotonous clicking of a needle imitated the ticking of a death-scarab against the wainscoting. A little old woman in a white mob-cap and a black-stuff gown sat sewing at a little distance from the couch, her red-knuckled hands moving busily over the lace and linen in her lap. Every now and again her peering, short-sighted eyes would fix themselves with a mute, inquiring kindliness on Miss Hardacre's face, as though her thoughts were busy as her hands.