fine hat. Sometimes I think as
I make more out of her tempers than I do out of my good work what she
pays me wages for."

"Well, if I wur a decent maid I'd be ashamed to wear any of her
outlandish gowns or hats. The colours she chooses! Sometimes when I see
her walking through a field near the lambing time, I'm scared for my
ewes, thinking they'll drop their lambs out of fright. I can't help
being thankful as she's in black now for this season, though maybe I
shudn't ought to say it, seeing as we've lost a good maeaster, and one as
we'll all be tediously regretting in a week or two if we aeun't now. You
take my word, Martha--next time she gives you a gownd, you give it back
to her and say as you don't wear such things, being a respectable woman.
It aeun't right, starting you like that on bad ways."

Sec.4

There was only one house in the joint parishes where Joanna had any
honourable mention, and that was North Farthing House on the other side
of the Kent Ditch. Here lived Sir Harry Trevor, the second holder of a
title won in banking enterprises, and lately fallen to low estate. The
reason could perhaps be seen on his good-looking face, with its sensual,
humorous mouth, roving eyes, and lurking air of unfulfilled, undefeated
youth. The taverns of the Three Marshes had combined to give him a
sensational past, and further said that his two sons had forced him to
settle at Brodnyx with a view to preserving what was left of his morals
and their inheritance. The elder was in Holy Orders, and belonged to a
small community working in the East End of London; he seldom came to
North Farthing House. The younger, Martin, who had some definite job in
the city, was home for a few days that October. It was to him his father
said:

"I can't help admiring that girl Joanna Godden for her pluck. Old Godden
died suddenly two weeks ago, and now she's given out that she'll run the
farm herself, instead of putting in a bailiff. Of course the neighbours
disapprove, they've got very strict notions round here as to woman's
sphere and all that sort of thing."

"Godden? Which farm's that?"

"Little Ansdore--just across the Ditch, in Pedlinge parish. It's a big
place, and I like her for taking it on."

"And for any other reason?"

"Lord, no! She isn't at all the sort of woman I admire--a great big
strapping wench, the kind this marsh breeds twelve to the acre, like the
sheep. Has it ever struck you, Martin, that the women on Romney