over the letter, careful not to take it in. She apprehended the contents with her callous, superficial mind. Her feeling self was shut down.

“What post is it?” she asked.

“She wants to go and be a teacher in Kingston-on-Thames, at fifty pounds a year.”

“Oh, indeed.”

The mother spoke as if it were a hostile fact concerning some stranger.

She would have let her go, out of callousness. Mrs. Brangwen would begin to grow up again only with her youngest child. Her eldest girl was in the way now.

“She's not going all that distance,” said the father.

“I have to go where they want me,”