the other hand, she
seemed to have far more authority....

"Now, hold your tongues while I say grace," she cried.

Joanna carved the turkeys, refusing to deputise either to Martin or to
Alce. At the same time she led a general kind of conversation. The
Christmas feast was to be communal in spirit as well as in fact--there
were to be no formalities above the salt or mutterings below it. The new
harmonium provided a good topic, for everyone had heard it, except Mrs.
Tolhurst who had stayed to keep watch over Ansdore, cheering herself
with the prospect of carols in the evening.

"It sounded best in the psalms," said Wilson, Joanna's looker since
Socknersh's day--"oh, the lovely grunts it made when it said--'Thou art
my Son, this day have I begotten thee!"

"So it did," said Broadhurst, "but I liked it best in the Herald
Angels."

"I liked it all through," said Milly Pump, the chicken-girl. "And I
thought Mr. Elphick middling clever to make it sound as if it wur
playing two different tunes at the same time."

"Was that how it sounded?" asked Mrs. Tolhurst wistfully, "maybe they'll
have it for the carols to-night."

"Surelye," said old Stuppeny, "you'd never have carols wudout a
harmonister. I'd lik myself to go and hear it, but doubt if I ull git so
far wud so much good victual inside me."

"No, you won't--not half so far," said Joanna briskly, "you stop at home
and keep quiet after this, or you'll be having bad dreams to-night."

"I never do but have one kind o' dream," said old Stuppeny, "I dream as
I'm setting by the fire and a young gal brings me a cup of cocoa. 'Tis
but an old dream, but reckon the Lord God sends the old dreams to the
old folk--all them new dreams that are about on the Marsh, they goes to
the young uns."

"Well, you've no call to complain of your dreams, Stuppeny," said
Wilson, "'tisn't everyone who has the luck to dream regular of a pretty
young gal. Leastways, I guess she's pretty, though you aeun't said it."

"I doean't take much count on her looks--'tis the cocoa I'm after, though
it aeun't often as the Lord God lets the dream stay till I've drunk my
cup. Sometimes 'tis my daughter Nannie wot brings it, but most times
'tis just some unacquainted female."

"Oh, you sorry old dog," said Wilson, and the table laughed
deep-throatedly, or giggled, according to sex. Old Stuppeny looked
pleased. His dream, for some reason unknown to himself, never failed to
raise a laugh, and generally pro