as thinking to herself--"My cheque-book
is in the drawer. If I wrote him a cheque, how grand it would look."

Finally she opened the drawer and took the cheques out. After all, she
could afford to be generous--she had nearly a hundred pounds in Lewes
Old Bank, put aside without any scraping for future "improvements." How
much could she spare? A guinea--that would look handsome, among all the
miserable half-crowns....

Mr. Pratt had seen the cheque-book, and a stutter came into his speech--

"So good of you, Miss Godden ... to help me ... encouraging, you
know ... been to so many places, a tiring afternoon ... feel rewarded."

She suddenly felt her throat grow tight; the queer compassion had come
back. She saw him trotting forlornly round from farm to farm, begging
small sums from people much better off than himself, receiving denials
or grudging gifts ... his boots were all over dust, she had noticed them
on her carpet. Her face flushed, as she suddenly dashed her pen into the
ink, wrote out the cheque in her careful, half-educated hand, and gave
it to him.

"There--that'll save you tramping any further."

She had written the cheque for the whole amount.

Mr. Pratt could not speak. He opened and shut his mouth like a fish.
Then suddenly he began to gabble, he poured out thanks and assurances
and deprecations in a stammering torrent. His gratitude overwhelmed
Joanna, disgusted her. She lost her feeling of warmth and
compassion--after all, what should she pity him for now that he had got
what he wanted, and much more easily than he deserved?

"That's all right, Mr. Pratt. I'm sorry I can't wait any longer now. I'm
making jam."

She forgot his dusty boots and weary legs that had scarcely had time to
rest, she forgot that she had meant to offer him a cup of tea.

"Good afternoon," she said, as he rose, with apologies for keeping her.

She went with him to the door, snatched his hat off the peg and gave it
to him, then crashed the door behind him, her cheeks burning with a
queer kind of shame.

Sec.3

For the next few days Joanna avoided Mr. Pratt; she could not tell why
her munificence should make her dislike him, but it did. One day as she
was walking through Pedlinge she saw him standing in the middle of the
road, talking to a young man whom on approach she recognized as Martin
Trevor, the Squire's second son. She could not get out of his way, as
the Pedlinge dyke was on one side of the road and on th