again. Her training was free. All college fees
were paid by the government, she had moreover a few pounds grant
every year. This would just pay for her train fares and her
clothing. Her parents would only have to feed her. She did not
want to cost them much. They would not be well off. Her father
would earn only two hundred a year, and a good deal of her
mother's capital was spent in buying the house. Still, there was
enough to get along with.

Gudrun was attending the Art School at Nottingham. She was
working particularly at sculpture. She had a gift for this. She
loved making little models in clay, of children or of animals.
Already some of these had appeared in the Students' Exhibition
in the Castle, and Gudrun was a distinguished person. She was
chafing at the Art School and wanted to go to London. But there
was not enough money. Neither would her parents let her go so
far.

Theresa had left the High School. She was a great strapping,
bold hussy, indifferent to all higher claims. She would stay at
home. The others were at school, except the youngest. When term
started, they would all be transferred to the Grammar School at
Willey Green.

Ursula was excited at making acquaintances in Beldover. The
excitement soon passed. She had tea at the clergyman's, at the
chemist's, at the other chemist's, at the doctor's, at the
under-manager's--then she knew practically everybody. She
could not take people very seriously, though at the time she
wanted to.

She wandered the country, on foot and on her bicycle, finding
it very beautiful in the forest direction, between Mansfield and
Southwell and Worksop. But she was here only skirmishing for
amusement. Her real exploration would begin in college.

Term began. She went into town each day by train. The
cloistered quiet of the college began to close around her.

She was not at first disappointed. The big college built of
stone, standing in the quiet street, with a rim of grass and
lime trees all so peaceful: she felt it remote, a magic land.
Its architecture was foolish, she knew from her father. Still,
it was different from that of all other buildings. Its rather
pretty, plaything, Gothic form was almost a style, in the dirty
industrial town.

She liked the hall, with its big stone chimney-piece and its
Gothic arches supporting the balcony above. To be sure the
arches were ugly, the chimney-piece of cardboard-like carved
stone, with its armorial decoration, looked sil