but he can't bid up to me."

"Would you like me to take Ellen to the wild beast show?" said Arthur
Alce.

"Oh, Arthur--that's middling kind of you, that's neighbourly. But aren't
you going into Romney yourself?"

"I've nothing particular to go for. I don't want to buy. If I went it
ud only be to look at stock."

"Well, I'd take it as a real kindness if you'd drive in Ellen to Rye on
Wednesday. The show's there only for the one day, and nobody else is
going up from these parts save the Cobbs, and I don't want Ellen to go
along with them 'cos of that Tom Cobb what's come back and up to no
good."

"I'm only too pleased to do anything for you, Joanna, as you know well."

"Yes, I know it well. You've been a hem good neighbour to me, Arthur."

"A neighbour ain't so good as I'd like to be."

"Oh, don't you git started on that again--I thought you'd done."

"I'll never have done of that."

Joanna looked vexed. Alce's wooing had grown stale, and no longer
gratified her. She could not help comparing his sandy-haired sedateness
with her memories of Martin's fire and youth--that dead sweetheart had
made it impossible for her to look at a man who was not eager and
virile; her admirers were now all, except for him, younger than herself.
She liked his friendship, his society, his ready and unselfish support,
but she could not bear to think of him as a suitor, and there was almost
disdain in her eyes.

"I don't like to hear such talk from you," she said coldly. Then she
remembered the silver tea-set which he had never taken back, and the
offer he had made just now.... "Not but that you ain't a good friend to
me, Arthur--my best."

A faint pink crept under his freckles and tan.

"Well, I reckon that should ought to be enough for me--to hear you say
that."

"I do say it. And now I'll go and tell Ellen you're taking her into Rye
for the show. She'll be a happy girl."

Sec.10

Ellen was not quite so happy as her sister expected. Her sum of
spectacular bliss stood in Shakespearean plays which she had seen, and
in "Monsieur Beaucaire," which she had not. A wild beast show with its
inevitable accompaniment of dust and chokiness and noise would give her
no pleasure at all, and the slight interest which had lain in the escort
of the Vines with the amorous Stacey was now removed. She did not want
Arthur Alce's company. Her sister's admirer struck her as a dull dog.

"I won't trouble him," she said. "I'm sure he doesn