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