Once, seeking explanation, she had opened her heart a little to Mrs.Munday.

It was disappointment, Mrs.Munday thought, that she had not been a boy; and with that Joan had to content herself.

Maybe also her mother's illness had helped to sadden him.

Or perhaps it was mere temperament, as she argued to herself later, for which they were both responsible.

Those little tricks of coaxing, of tenderness, of wilfulness, by means of which other girls wriggled their way so successfully into a warm nest of cosy affection: she had never been able to employ them.