plastered back, and his easy-going chumminess.

Hermione Roddice came up, in a handsome gown of white lace, trailing an enormous silk shawl blotched with great embroidered flowers, and balancing an enormous plain hat on her head. She looked striking, astonishing, almost macabre, so tall, with the fringe of her great cream-coloured vividly-blotched shawl trailing on the ground after her, her thick hair coming low over her eyes, her face strange and long and pale, and the blotches of brilliant colour drawn round her.

‘Doesn’t she look WEIRD!’ Gudrun heard some girls titter behind her. And she could have killed them.

‘How do you do!’ sang Hermione, coming up very kindly, and glancing slowly over Gudrun’s father and mother.