kneel in
your place and say 'Lord have mercy upon us,' knowing what you'd been up
to"--Martha's tears flowed freely--"and it's sad to think you've kept
yourself straight for years as you say, and then gone wrong at last,
just because you hadn't patience to wait for your lawful wedding ... and
all the scandal there's been and ull be, and folks talking at you and at
me ... and you be off now, and tell Mrs. Tolhurst you're to have the
cream on your milk and take it before it's skimmed."

Sec.18

For the rest of the day Joanna was in a strange fret--dreams seemed to
hang over life like mist, there was sorrow in all she did, and yet a
queer, suffocating joy. She told herself that she was upset by Martha's
revelation, but at the same time she knew it had upset her not so much
in itself as in the disturbing new self-knowledge it had brought. She
could not hide from herself that she was delighted, overjoyed to find
that her shepherd did not love her chicken-girl, that the thoughts she
had thought about them for nine months were but vain thoughts.

Was it true, then, that she was moving along that road which the
villages had marked out for her--the road which would end before the
Lion and the Unicorn in Brodnyx church, with her looker as her
bridegroom? The mere thought was preposterous to her pride. She, her
father's daughter, to marry his father's son!--the suspicion insulted
her. She loved herself and Ansdore too well for that ... and Socknersh,
fine fellow as he was, had no mind and very little sense--he could
scarcely read and write, he was slow as an ox, and had common ways and
spoke the low Marsh talk--he drank out of his saucer and cut his bread
with his pocket-knife--he spat in the yard. How dared people think she
would marry him?--that she was so undignified, infatuated and
unfastidious as to yoke herself to a slow, common boor? Her indignation
flamed against the scandal-mongers ... that Woolpack! She'd like to see
their licence taken away, and then perhaps decent women's characters
would be safe....

But folk said it was queer she should keep on Socknersh when he had
done her such a lot of harm--they made sure there must be something
behind it. For the first time Joanna caught a glimpse of his
shortcomings as a looker, and in a moment of vision asked herself if it
wasn't really true that he ought to have known about that dip. Was she
blinding herself to his incapacity simply because she liked to have him
ab