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Sampson and she had been changed immediately into a rabbit. It had never
been Mrs. Sampson's fault that she was alarming to the young. She was a
good woman, but she was cursed with two sad burdens--a desperate shyness
and a series, unrelenting, unmitigating, mysterious, desperate, of nervous
headaches.
Her headaches were a feature of Polchester life, and those who were old
enough to understand pitied her and offered her many remedies. But the
young cannot be expected to realise that there can be anything physically
wrong with the old, and Mrs. Sampson's sharpness of manner, her terrifying
habit of rapping out a "Yes" or a "No," her gloomy view of boisterous
habits and healthy appetites, made her one most truly to be avoided.
Before to-day Joan would have willingly walked a mile out of her way to
escape her; to-day she only saw a nervous, pale-faced little woman in an
ill-fitting blue dress, for whom she could not be anything but sorry.
"Good morning, Mrs. Sampson."
"Good morning, Joan."
"Isn't it a nice day?"
"It's cold, I think. Is your mother well?"
"Very well, thank you.


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