“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 sealskin mantle can fit.

“My word—­it’s warm!” she said.  This was her sole comment.

“Keep it on,” said Denry.

His mother’s glance withered the suggestion.

“Where are you going?” he asked, as she left the room.

“To put it away,” said she.  “I must get some moth-powder to-morrow.”

He protested with inarticulate noises, removed his own furs, which he threw down on to the old worn-out sofa, and drew a Windsor chair up to the fire.  After a while his mother returned, and sat down in her rocking-chair, and began to shiver again under the shawl and the antimacassar.  The lamp on the table lighted up the left side of her face and the right side of his.

“Look here, mother,” said he, “you must have a doctor.”

“I shall have no doctor.”

“You’ve got influenza, and it’s a very tricky business—­influenza is; you never know where you are with it.”