in the Prayers and jumped all the way from the Belief to the
Royal Family?"

"And that time as she hit Job Piper over the head wud a bunch of osiers
just because he'd told her he knew more about thatching than she did."

"Surelye, and knocked his hat off into the dyke, and then bought him a
new one, with a lining to it."

"And there was that time when--"

Several more anecdotes to the point were contributed by the various
patrons of the bar, before the conversation, having described a full
circle, returned to its original starting point, and then set off again
with its vitality apparently undiminished. It was more than a week
before the summons of Mr. Gain, of Botolph's Bridge, for driving his gig
without a light ousted Joanna from her central glory in the Woolpack's
discussions.

At Ansdore itself the interest naturally lasted longer. Joanna's
dependents whether in yard or kitchen were resentfully engrossed in the
new conditions.

"So Joanna's going to run our farm for us, is she?" said the head man,
old Stuppeny, "that'll be valiant, wud some of the notions she has.
She'll have our plaeace sold up in a twelve-month, surelye. Well, well,
it's time maybe as I went elsewheres--I've bin long enough at this job."

Old Stuppeny had made this remark at intervals for the last sixty
years, indeed ever since the day he had first come as a tow-headed boy
to scare sparrows from the fields of Joanna's grandfather; so no one
gave it the attention that should have been its due. Other people aired
their grievances instead.

"I woean't stand her meddling wud me and my sheep," said Fuller, the
shepherd.

"It's her sheep, come to that," said Martha Tilden the chicken-girl.

Fuller dealt her a consuming glance out of his eyes, which the long
distances of the marsh had made keen as the sea wind.

"She doean't know nothing about sheep, and I've been a looker after sheep
since times when you and her was in your cradles, so I woean't taeake sass
from neither of you."

"She'll meddle wud you, Martha, just as she'll meddle wud the rest of
us," said Broadhurst, the cowman.

"She's meddled wud me for years--I'm used to it. It's you men what's
going to have your time now. Ha! Ha! I'll be pleased watching it."

Martha's short, brightly-coloured face seemed ready to break in two as
she laughed with her mouth wide open.

"When she's had a terrification wud me and said things as she's sorry
for, she'll give me a gownd of hers or a