eldest child was very much fretted by her responsibility
for the other young ones. Especially Theresa, a sturdy,
bold-eyed thing, had a faculty for warfare.

"Our Ursula, Billy Pillins has lugged my hair."

"What did you say to him?"

"I said nothing."

Then the Brangwen girls were in for a feud with the
Pillinses, or Phillipses.

"You won't pull my hair again, Billy Pillins," said Theresa,
walking with her sisters, and looking superbly at the freckled,
red-haired boy.

"Why shan't I?" retorted Billy Pillins.

"You won't because you dursn't," said the tiresome
Theresa.

"You come here, then, Tea-pot, an' see if I dursna."

Up marched Tea-pot, and immediately Billy Pillins lugged her
black, snaky locks. In a rage she flew at him. Immediately in
rushed Ursula and Gudrun, and little Katie, in clashed the other
Phillipses, Clem and Walter, and Eddie Anthony. Then there was a
fray. The Brangwen girls were well-grown and stronger than many
boys. But for pinafores and long hair, they would have carried
easy victories. They went home, however, with hair lugged and
pinafores torn. It was a joy to the Phillips boys to rip the
pinafores of the Brangwen girls.

Then there was an outcry. Mrs. Brangwen would not have
it; no, she would not. All her innate dignity and
standoffishness rose up. Then there was the vicar lecturing the
school. "It was a sad thing that the boys of Cossethay could not
behave more like gentlemen to the girls of Cossethay. Indeed,
what kind of boy was it that should set upon a girl, and kick
her, and beat her, and tear her pinafore? That boy deserved
severe castigation, and the name of coward, for no boy
who was not a coward--etc., etc."

Meanwhile much hang-dog fury in the Pillinses' hearts, much
virtue in the Brangwen girls', particularly in Theresa's. And
the feud continued, with periods of extraordinary amity, when
Ursula was Clem Phillips's sweetheart, and Gudrun was Walter's,
and Theresa was Billy's, and even the tiny Katie had to be Eddie
Ant'ny's sweetheart. There was the closest union. At every
possible moment the little gang of Brangwens and Phillipses flew
together. Yet neither Ursula nor Gudrun would have any real
intimacy with the Phillips boys. It was a sort of fiction to
them, this alliance and this dubbing of sweethearts.

Again Mrs. Brangwen rose up.

"Ursula, I will not have you raking the roads with
lads, so I tell you. Now stop it, and the rest will stop
it."

How Urs