at, parcel, and
all.

Mrs Machin, in a shawl and an antimacassar over the shawl, sat close to
the fire and leaning towards it. She looked cold and ill. Although the
parlour was very tiny and the fire comparatively large, the structure of
the grate made it impossible that the room should be warm, as all the
heat went up the chimney. If Mrs Machin had sat on the roof and put her
hands over the top of the chimney, she would have been much warmer than
at the grate.

"You aren't in bed?" Denry queried.

"Can't ye see?" said his mother. And, indeed, to ask a woman who was
obviously sitting up in a chair whether she was in bed, did seem
somewhat absurd. She added, less sarcastically: "I was expecting ye
every minute. Where have ye had your tea?"

"Oh!" he said lightly, "in Hanbridge."

An untruth! He had not had his tea anywhere. But he had dined richly at
the new Hotel Metropole, Hanbridge.

"What have ye got there?" asked his mother.

"A present for you," said Denry. "It's your birthday to-morrow."

"I don't know as I want reminding of that," murmured Mrs Machin.

But when he had undone the parcel and held up the contents before her,
she exclaimed:

"Bless us!"

The staggered tone was an admission that for once in a way he had
impressed her.

It was a magnificent sealskin mantle, longer than sealskin mantles
usually are. It was one of those articles the owner of which can say:
"Nobody can have a better than this--I don't care who she is." It was
worth in monetary value all the plain, shabby clothes on Mrs Machin's
back, and all her very ordinary best clothes upstairs, and all the
furniture in the entire house, and perhaps all Denry's dandiacal
wardrobe too, except his fur coat. If the entire contents of the
cottage, with the aforesaid exception, had been put up to auction, they
would not have realised enough to pay for that sealskin mantle.

Had it been anything but a sealskin mantle, and equally costly, Mrs
Machin would have upbraided. But a sealskin mantle is not "showy." It
"goes with" any and every dress and bonnet. And the most respectable,
the most conservative, the most austere woman may find legitimate
pleasure in wearing it. A sealskin mantle is the sole luxurious
ostentation that a woman of Mrs Machin's temperament--and there are many
such in the Five Towns and elsewhere--will conscientiously permit
herself.

"Try it on," said Denry.

She rose weakly and tried it on. It fitted as well as a seal