Miss Mole by E.H. Young — Read

For once, Hannah's hands were idle. She lay back in the armchair by the dining-room fire with a book on her knee, and Ruth, glancing up from her work, now and then, saw that her eyes were often shut. She looked different like that; younger and, though Ruth did not find words for her thought, more vulnerable. Her dress of dark red silk was not fashionable and it was old, but the skirt of it and her silk stockings shimmered in the firelight, the buckles on her slippers sparkled, and her idleness and her elegant feet gave Ruth a feeling of satisfaction and of approach to the ideal life in the Vicarage, where everybody changed for dinner, and no one was in a hurry. Her mother, whose resistance to evening meetings had not been complete and who might be called out at any hour on missions of mercy, had seldom worn a dress unsuitable for sudden excursions, and this had offended Ruth's sense of fitness and added to the restlessness of a home in which everybody was expected to be doing good outside it.

All stuffy things had been implied, for Ruth, in the name of housekeeper; stuffy frocks, thick stockings, a prim face and an oppressive sense of duty, yet here was Miss Mole looking, for all her lack of fashion, like a lady who belonged to a world unconnected with chapels, where beauty and leisure were expected and attained. It was a peep through a door Ruth had always wanted to open, and she said quietly, "I like it when you're not darning."