th doctor's
stuff...."

Joanna was not listening to her--she sat amazed and pale, her heart
beating in heavy thuds of relief. Mixed with her happiness there was a
little shame, for she saw that the mistake had arisen from her putting
herself too realistically in Martha's place. Why had she jumped to the
conclusion that the girl's lover was Socknersh? It is true that he had
danced with her very often at the Christmas party nine months ago, and
once since then she had scolded him for telling the chicken-woman some
news he ought first to have told the mistress ... but that was very
little in the way of evidence, and Martha had always been running after
boys....

Seeing her still silent, Martha began to cry again.

"I'm sure I'm unaccountable sorry, Miss Joanna, and what's to become of
me I don't know, nuther. Maybe I'm a bad lot, but it's hard to love and
wait on and on for the wedding ... and Pete was sure as he could do
summat wud a horse running in the Derby race, and at the Woolpack they
told him it wur bound to win.... I've always kept straight up till this,
Miss Joanna, and a virtuous virgin for all I do grin and laugh a lot ...
and many's the temptation I've had, being a lone gal wudout father or
mother ..."

"Keep quiet, Martha, and have done with so much excuse. You've been a
very wicked gal, and you shouldn't ought to think any different of
yourself. But maybe I was too quick, saying you were to go at once. You
can finish your month, seeing as you were monthly hired."

"Thank you, Miss Joanna, that'll give me time to look around for another
plaeace; though--" bursting out crying again--"I don't see what good
that'll do me, seeing as my time's three months from hence."

A great softness had come over Joanna. There were tears in her eyes as
she looked at Martha, but they were no longer tears of anger.

"Don't cry, child," she said kindly, "I'll see you don't come to want."

"Oh, thank you, Miss Joanna ... it's middling good of you, and Pete will
repay you when we're married and have saeaved some tin."

"I'll do my best, for you've worked well on the whole, and I shan't
forget that Orpington hen you saved when she was egg-bound. But don't
you think, Martha," she added seriously, "that I'm holding with any of
your goings-on. I'm shocked and ashamed at you, for you've done
something very wicked--something that's spoken against in the Bible, and
in church too--it's in the Ten Commandments. I wonder you could