by dying."

"Reckon her heart's broke," said Mrs. Tolhurst.

"Her temper's broke," said Milly Pump.

They were unsympathetic, because she expressed her grief in terms of
fierce activity instead of in the lackadaisical ways of tradition. If
Joanna had taken to her bed on her return from North Farthing House that
early time, and had sent for the doctor, and shown all the credited
symptoms of a broken heart, they would have pitied her and served her
and borne with her. But, instead, she had come back hustling and
scolding, and they could not see that she did so because not merely her
heart but her whole self was broken, and that she was just flying and
rattling about like a broken thing. So instead of pitying her, they
grumbled and threatened to leave her service--in fact, Milly Pump
actually did so, and was succeeded by Mene Tekel Fagge, the daughter of
Bibliolatious parents at Northlade.

Ansdore throve on its mistress's frenzy. That autumn Joanna had four
hundred pounds in Lewes Old Bank, the result of her splendid markets and
of her new ploughs, which had borne eight bushels to the acre. She had
triumphed gloriously over everyone who had foretold her ruin through
breaking up pasture; strong-minded farmers could scarcely bear to drive
along that lap of the Brodnyx road which ran through Joanna's wheat,
springing slim and strong and heavy-eared as from Lothian soil--if there
had been another way from Brodnyx to Rye market they would have taken
it; indeed it was rumoured that on one occasion Vine had gone by train
from Appledore because he couldn't abear the sight of Joanna Godden's
ploughs.

This rumour, when it reached her, brought her a faint thrill. It was the
beginning of a slow process of reidentification of herself with her own
activities, which till then had been as some furious raging outside the
house. She began to picture new acts of discomfiting adventure, new
roads which should be shut to Vine through envy. Ansdore was all she
had, so she must make it much. When she had given it and herself to
Martin she had had all the Marsh and all the world to plant with her
love; but since he was gone and had left her gifts behind him, she had
just a few acres to plant with wheat--and her harvest should be bread
alone.

Sec.2

Her black months had changed her--not outwardly very much, but leaving
wounds in her heart. Martin had woken in her too many needs for her to
be able to go back quietly into the old l