er had
greeted her announcement, the eager way in which she had urged and
hustled preparations for the wedding, all seemed a little incongruous
and humiliating.... Joanna should at least have had some moments of
realizing her fallen state.

However, what she missed at home Ellen received abroad. Some neighbours
were evidently offended, especially those who had sons to mate. Mrs.
Vine had been very stiff when Ellen called with Alce.

"Well, Arthur"--ignoring the bride-to-be--"I always felt certain you
would marry Ansdore, but it was the head I thought you'd take and not
the tail."

"Oh, the tail's good enough for me," said Arthur, which Ellen thought
clumsy of him.

Having taken the step, Arthur was curiously satisfied. His obedience in
renouncing Joanna seemed to have brought him closer to her than all his
long wooing. Besides, he was growing very fond of little Ellen--her
soft, clinging ways and little sleek airs appealed to him as those of a
small following animal would, and he was proud of her cleverness, and of
her prettiness, which now he had come to see, though for a long time he
had not appreciated it, because it was so different from Joanna's
healthy red and brown.

He took her round the farms, not only in her own neighbourhood, but
those near Donkey Street, over on Romney Marsh, across the Rhee Wall. In
her honour he bought a new trap, and Ellen drove beside him in it,
sitting very demure and straight. People said--"There goes Ellen
Godden, who's marrying her sister's young man," and sometimes Ellen
heard them.

She inspected Donkey Street, which was a low, plain, oblong house,
covered with grey stucco, against which flamed the orange of its
lichened roof. It had been built in Queen Anne's time, and enlarged and
stuccoed over about fifty years ago. It was a good, solid house, less
rambling than Ansdore, but the kitchens were a little damp.

Alce bought new linen and new furniture. He had some nice pieces of old
furniture too, which Ellen was very proud of. She felt she could make
quite a pleasant country house of Donkey Street. In spite of Joanna's
protests, Alce let her have her own way about styles and colours, and
her parlour was quite unlike anything ever seen on the Marsh outside
North Farthing and Dungemarsh Court. There was no centre table and no
cabinet, but a deep, comfortable sofa, which Ellen called a
chesterfield, and a "cosy corner," and a Sheraton bureau, and a Sheraton
china-cupboard wi