However, Frieda would not remain in England without her sister and Jack was unwilling that she should. Nevertheless, insisting on maintaining the attitude of an aggrieved character, Frieda separated herself from her own family whenever she could. Twice a week for instance she went into Granchester to tea with Mrs. Huggins. Frieda had a private reason for this. One day she had overlooked the fact that her own "Dame Quick" had not been her nurse or foster mother and had confided to the old woman some of the things which were troubling her. She did not want advice, what she wanted was to say those things aloud which she had been saying to herself, and she knew her old friend would simply listen and be kind to her. One might think she would have feared that the old woman, with her passion for spreading news, would have gossiped about her, but Frieda knew better than this. One afternoon, about ten days before their sailing time, Frieda started off alone to walk to Granchester. She was earlier than need be since Olive had asked her a question which had offended her and she had been irritable. She thought she had caught the suggestion of a lecture in her sister's expression and so had hurried off before Jack had a chance to speak. Frieda recognized the fact that she was a little difficult to live with these days. But then she excused herself by saying that no one knew how worried and nervous she was. There were times when Frieda was afraid she might be losing her prettiness through worry, until her mirror reassured her. For Frieda understood her own appearance, just as she understood a great many things. She knew that Jack had developed into a beauty from a merely handsome girlhood and that she was only pretty. But she also realized that prettiness often makes more appeal, especially to men, than a higher type of loveliness. Therefore, Frieda had no idea of not preserving her own charms as long as she possibly could. She walked slowly so as not to arrive too early and because she was enjoying the country more than she usually did. The quietness of the English landscape, its look of a carefully kept garden, appealed to Frieda more than the vastness of her own windswept western prairies. It was one of the many odd ironies of fate that Jack, who loved the prairies must live in England, while until lately Frieda's life had been cast at least on the edge of the western country. The old English laborers passing back and forth from their ploughing of the spring fields were almost the only persons she met. When Frieda reached the little house at the edge of the village, of which Mrs. Huggins had once told her some story, she stopped for a moment without any particular motive. She did not remember exactly what the story was, if she had ever known. But the little house rather interested her. For one thing she had noticed every time she passed, at no matter what hour, the blinds were always drawn halfway down.