As they walked back up the hill to Mrs Postlethwaite’s remote house, lingering a few yards behind their strict and domineering guardian, Alice tried to reassure Billy by saying “Don’t worry, I’ll look after you… and it’s not so bad being a girl.”
“It’s horrible.” Billy whimpered. “Everybody laughs at me and I can hardly breathe in this corset.”
Alice agreed that having to wear a corset is horrible, especially at night. “She put a chain around mine to stop me from taking it off,” Alice told him. Billy said she’d done the same to him. “I thought as much,” Alice replied. “But apart from wearing a corset, it’s not so bad being a girl,” she assured.