rk, a stout, pale, sharp-nosed woman, sly, honied, with something
shrewish and cat-like beneath, asked the girls into her toocosy, too
tidy kitchen. There was a cat-like comfort and cleanliness everywhere.

'Yes, Miss Brangwen,' she said, in her slightly whining, insinuating
voice, 'and how do you like being back in the old place, then?'

Gudrun, whom she addressed, hated her at once.

'I don't care for it,' she replied abruptly.

'You don't? Ay, well, I suppose you found a difference from London. You
like life, and big, grand places. Some of us has to be content with
Willey Green and Beldover. And what do you think of our Grammar School,
as there's so much talk about?'

'What do I think of it?' Gudrun looked round at her slowly. 'Do you
mean, do I think it's a good school?'

'Yes. What is your opinion of it?'

'I DO think it's a good school.'

Gudrun was very cold and repelling. She knew the common people hated
the school.

'Ay, you do, then! I've heard so much, one way and the other. It's nice
to know what those that's in it feel. But opinions vary, don't they? Mr
Crich up at Highclose is all for it. Ay, poor man, I'm afraid he's not
long for this world. He's very poorly.'

'Is he worse?' asked Ursula.

'Eh, yes--since they lost Miss Diana. He's gone off to a shadow. Poor
man, he's had a world of trouble.'

'Has he?' asked Gudrun, faintly ironic.

'He has, a world of trouble. And as nice and kind a gentleman as ever
you could wish to meet. His children don't take after him.'

'I suppose they take after their mother?' said Ursula.

'In many ways.' Mrs Krik lowered her voice a little. 'She was a proud
haughty lady when she came into these parts--my word, she was that! She
mustn't be looked at, and it was worth your life to speak to her.' The
woman made a dry, sly face.

'Did you know her when she was first married?'

'Yes, I knew her. I nursed three of her children. And proper little
terrors they were, little fiends--that Gerald was a demon if ever there
was one, a proper demon, ay, at six months old.' A curious malicious,
sly tone came into the woman's voice.

'Really,' said Gudrun.

'That wilful, masterful--he'd mastered one nurse at six months. Kick,
and scream, and struggle like a demon. Many's the time I've pinched his
little bottom for him, when he was a child in arms. Ay, and he'd have
been better if he'd had it pinched oftener. But she wouldn't have them
corrected--no-o, wouldn't hear of