naged. Difficult as it
is."

Grace's anger boiled over.

"That woman must go," she insisted.

"Very well," said Maggie.

Cook after cook appeared and vanished. They all hated Grace.

"You're not very good at keeping servants, are you, Maggie, dear?" said
Grace.

Then there was the shopping. Grace's conversation was the real trouble
here. Grace's stories had seemed rather a joke in London, soon, in
Skeaton, they became a torture. From the vicarage to the High Street
was not far, but it was far enough for Grace's narrative powers to
stretch their legs and get a healthy appetite for the day's work. Grace
walked very slowly, because of her painful breathing. Her stout stolid
figure in its stiff clothes (the skirt rather short, thick legs in
black stockings and large flat boots), marched along. She had a
peculiar walk, planting each foot on the ground with deliberate
determination as though she were squashing a malignant beetle, she was
rather short-sighted, but did not wear glasses, because, as she said to
Maggie, "one need not look peculiar until one must." Her favourite
head-gear was a black straw hat with a rather faded black ribbon and a
huge pin stuck skewer-wise into it. This pin was like a dagger.

She peered around her as she walked, and for ever enquired of Maggie,
"who that was on the other Bide of the road." Maggie, of course, did
not know, and there began then a long cross-questioning as to colour,
clothes, height, smile or frown. Nothing was too small to catch Grace's
interest but nothing caught it for long. Maggie, at the end of her walk
felt as though she were beset by a whirl of little buzzing flies. She
noticed that Paul had, from, long habit, learnt to continue his own
thoughts during Grace's stories, and she also tried to do this, but she
was not clever at it because Grace would suddenly stop and say, "Where
was I, Maggie?" and then when Maggie was confused regard her
suspiciously, narrowing her eyes into little thin points. The shopping
was difficult because Grace would stand at Maggie's elbow and say:
"Now, Maggie, this is your affair, isn't it? You decide what you want,"
and then when Maggie had decided, Grace simply, to show her power,
would say: "Oh, I don't think we'd better have that ... No, I don't
think we'll have that. Will you show us something else, please?"-and so
they had to begin all over again.

Nevertheless, throughout their first summer Maggie was almost happy;
not QUITE happy