ried also a yellow silk coat over her arm, so that she
looked remarkable, like a painting from the Salon. Her appearance was a
sore trial to her father, who said angrily:

'Don't you think you might as well get yourself up for a Christmas
cracker, an'ha' done with it?'

But Gudrun looked handsome and brilliant, and she wore her clothes in
pure defiance. When people stared at her, and giggled after her, she
made a point of saying loudly, to Ursula:

'Regarde, regarde ces gens-la! Ne sont-ils pas des hiboux incroyables?'
And with the words of French in her mouth, she would look over her
shoulder at the giggling party.

'No, really, it's impossible!' Ursula would reply distinctly. And so
the two girls took it out of their universal enemy. But their father
became more and more enraged.

Ursula was all snowy white, save that her hat was pink, and entirely
without trimming, and her shoes were dark red, and she carried an
orange-coloured coat. And in this guise they were walking all the way
to Shortlands, their father and mother going in front.

They were laughing at their mother, who, dressed in a summer material
of black and purple stripes, and wearing a hat of purple straw, was
setting forth with much more of the shyness and trepidation of a young
girl than her daughters ever felt, walking demurely beside her husband,
who, as usual, looked rather crumpled in his best suit, as if he were
the father of a young family and had been holding the baby whilst his
wife got dressed.

'Look at the young couple in front,' said Gudrun calmly. Ursula looked
at her mother and father, and was suddenly seized with uncontrollable
laughter. The two girls stood in the road and laughed till the tears
ran down their faces, as they caught sight again of the shy, unworldly
couple of their parents going on ahead.

'We are roaring at you, mother,' called Ursula, helplessly following
after her parents.

Mrs Brangwen turned round with a slightly puzzled, exasperated look.
'Oh indeed!' she said. 'What is there so very funny about ME, I should
like to know?'

She could not understand that there could be anything amiss with her
appearance. She had a perfect calm sufficiency, an easy indifference to
any criticism whatsoever, as if she were beyond it. Her clothes were
always rather odd, and as a rule slip-shod, yet she wore them with a
perfect ease and satisfaction. Whatever she had on, so long as she was
barely tidy, she was right, beyond rem