I saw her, sir, before I left, and I've had no peace
of mind. I couldn't sleep thinking of her. So I've come back to look
after her, as I have done all her life, sir," and she stooped down and
took Mrs. Tebrick by the paw.

Mr. Tebrick unlocked the door and they went in. When Mrs. Cork saw the
house she exclaimed again and again: "The place was a pigstye. They
couldn't live like that, a gentleman must have somebody to look after
him. She would do it. He could trust her with the secret."

Had the old woman come the day before it is likely enough that Mr.
Tebrick would have sent her packing. But the voice of conscience being
woken in him by his drunkenness of the night before he was heartily
ashamed of his own management of the business, moreover the old woman's
words that "it was a shame to let her run about like a dog," moved him
exceedingly. Being in this mood the truth is he welcomed her.

But we may conclude that Mrs. Tebrick was as sorry to see her old Nanny
as her husband was glad. If we consider that she had been brought up
strictly by her when she was a child, and was now again in her power,
and that her old nurse could never be satisfied with her now whatever
she did, but would always think her wicked to be a fox at all, there
seems good reason for her dislike. And it is possible, too, that there
may have been another cause as well, and that is jealousy. We know her
husband was always trying to bring her back to be a woman, or at any
rate to get her to act like one, may she not have been hoping to get him
to be like a beast himself or to act like one? May she not have thought
it easier to change him thus than ever to change herself back into
being a woman? If we think that she had had a success of this kind only
the night before, when he got drunk, can we not conclude that this was
indeed the case, and then we have another good reason why the poor lady
should hate to see her old nurse?

It is certain that whatever hopes Mr. Tebrick had of Mrs. Cork affecting
his wife for the better were disappointed. She grew steadily wilder and
after a few days so intractable with her that Mr. Tebrick again took her
under his complete control.

The first morning Mrs. Cork made her a new jacket, cutting down the
sleeves of a blue silk one of Mrs. Tebrick's and trimming it with swan's
down, and directly she had altered it, put it on her mistress, and
fetching a mirror would have her admire the fit of it. All the time she
wai