and that her old nurse could never be satisfied with her now whatever
she did, but would always think her wicked to be a fox at all, there
seems good reason for her dislike. And it is possible, too, that there
may have been another cause as well, and that is jealousy. We know her
husband was always trying to bring her back to be a woman, or at any
rate to get her to act like one, may she not have been hoping to get him
to be like a beast himself or to act like one? May she not have thought
it easier to change him thus than ever to change herself back into
being a woman? If we think that she had had a success of this kind only
the night before, when he got drunk, can we not conclude that this was
indeed the case, and then we have another good reason why the poor lady
should hate to see her old nurse?

It is certain that whatever hopes Mr. Tebrick had of Mrs. Cork affecting
his wife for the better were disappointed. She grew steadily wilder and
after a few days so intractable with her that Mr. Tebrick again took her
under his complete control.

The first morning Mrs. Cork made her a new jacket, cutting down the
sleeves of a blue silk one of Mrs. Tebrick's and trimming it with swan's
down, and directly she had altered it, put it on her mistress, and
fetching a mirror would have her admire the fit of it. All the time she
waited on Mrs. Tebrick the old woman talked to her as though she were a
baby, and treated her as such, never thinking perhaps that she was
either the one thing or the other, that is either a lady to whom she
owed respect and who had rational powers exceeding her own, or else a
wild creature on whom words were wasted. But though at first she
submitted passively, Mrs. Tebrick only waited for her Nanny's back to be
turned to tear up her pretty piece of handiwork into shreds, and then
ran gaily about waving her brush with only a few ribands still hanging