A Scene of Domestic Bliss

"Dressed in a clean green overall, with her hair brushed to flame, and singing snatches of a hymn tune alternately with snatches of the latest musical comedy, Sally moved about her shining kitchen getting her breakfast.  The spring sun glinting on the fittings of her electric stove, lighting up the scarlet geraniums on the window sill, made her utterly happy.  The smell of the coffee made her feel happy too, and the smell of toast.  She laid her breakfast tray daintily, and sat down to the kitchen table to eat and to review the coming day.  After breakfast Mrs. Smith would come, and they would start the housework, and then, while Mrs. Smith was having her eleven o'clock cup of tea, she would go to the greengrocer's and perhaps she would meet the five children there and talk to them.  They were usually there about eleven on holidays, buying lettuce for their mother, and sometimes they brought their mother's Pekinese with them.  She loved the children and she loved their Pekinese, and she wished they were hers.  And then she would come back and finish the housework, have lunch, go for a walk by the river, and watch the sun on the water and hear the sea gulls crying.  After that she would come home and read a while, then put on her new frock and go to Jan Carruthers' cocktail party.  That would be fun.  Parties were always fun.  And then she would come home and bake some cakes, and after supper she would listen to the radio and go on with the sweater she was knitting for her father, then go upstairs and help Mrs. Rutherford with her patchwork quilt for a while before saying good night to her.  She hoped that not too many people would come in to see her, thinking she was lonely.  She was never lonely." -- Elizabeth Goudge, Pilgrim's Inn