l matters of business and
daily life, Joanna was still emotionally adolescent, and her betrothed
state satisfied her as it would never have done if her feelings had been
as old as her years. Also this deferring of love had helped other things
to get a hold on her--Martin was astonished to find her swayed by such
considerations as sowing and shearing and marketing--"I can't fix up
anything till I've got my spring sowings done"--"that ud be in the
middle of the shearing"--"I'd sooner wait till I'm through the autumn
markets."

He discovered that she thought "next fall" the best time for the
wedding--"I'll have got everything clear by then, and I'll know how the
new ploughs have borne." He fought her and beat her back into
June--"after the hay." He was rather angry with her for thinking about
these things, they expressed a side of her which he would have liked to
ignore. He did not care for a "managing" woman, and he could still see,
in spite of her new moments of surrender, that Joanna eternally would
"manage." But in spite of this his love for her grew daily, as he
discovered daily her warmth and breadth and tenderness, her growing
capacity for passion. Once or twice he told her to let the sowings and
the shearings be damned, and come and get married to him quietly without
any fuss at the registrar's. But Joanna was shocked at the idea of
getting married anywhere but in church--she could not believe a marriage
legal which the Lion and the Unicorn had not blessed. Also he discovered
that she rejoiced in fuss, and thought June almost too early for the
preparations she wanted to make.

"I'm going to show 'em what a wedding's like," she remarked
ominously--"I'm going to do everything in the real, proper, slap-up
style. I'm going to have a white dress and a veil and carriages and
bridesmaids and favours--" this was the old Joanna--"you don't mind, do
you, Martin?" this was the new.

Of course he could not say he minded. She was like an eager child,
anxious for notice and display. He would endure the wedding for her
sake. He also would endure for her sake to live at Ansdore; after a few
weeks he saw that nothing else could happen. It would be ridiculous for
Joanna to uproot herself from her prosperous establishment and settle in
some new place just because in spirit he shrank from becoming "Mr.
Joanna Godden." She had said that "Martin and Joanna Trevor" should be
painted on the scrolled name-boards of her waggons, but he k