Chapter TwoThe stagecoach carrying Ilouka and Hannah was slow and uncomfortable.
It was a very old vehicle, as they had expected, because it was not on one of the main highways where the quicker-moving and better-sprung one plied for hire.
But on the twisting country lanes there was no choice and the coach that went by once a day carried passengers from one village to another so that in most cases it stopped practically every mile.
Ilouka, who was always interested in people, talked to the fat farmers’ wives who carried baskets of baby chicks or to their young daughters who were travelling to nearby towns to go into service for the first time.
Hannah made it obvious that she disapproved of her conversing so familiarly, but Ilouka paid no attention to her or to the way she sat stiff and
