the New Innings, but they
won't fetch much under, for I declare they're good meat. If we keep them
over the winter we'll have to send them inland and pay no end for their
grazing--and then maybe the price of mutton ull go down in the Spring."

"It ud be a fool's job to taeake them."

"You say that because you don't want to have to fetch them up from the
Salt Innings. I tell you you're getting lazy, Fuller."

"My old maeaster never called me that."

"Well, you work as well for me as you did for him, and I won't call you
lazy, neither."

She gave him a conciliatory grin, but Fuller had been too deeply wounded
for such easy balm. He turned and walked away, a whole speech written in
the rebellious hunch of his shoulders.

"You'll get them beasts," she called after him.

"Surelye"--came in a protesting drawl. Then "Yup!--Yup!" to the two
sheep dogs couched on the doorstep.

Sec.6

What with supervising the work and herding slackers, getting her
breakfast and packing off Ellen to the little school she went to at Rye,
Joanna found all too soon that the market hour was upon her. It did not
strike her to shirk this part of a farmer's duty--she would drive into
Rye and into Lydd and into Romney as her father had always driven,
inspecting beasts and watching prices. Soon after ten o'clock she ran
upstairs to make herself splendid, as the occasion required.

By this time the morning had lifted itself out of the mist. Great sheets
of blue covered the sky and were mirrored in the dykes--there was a soft
golden glow about the marsh, for the vivid green of the pastures was
filmed over with the brown of the withering seed-grasses, and the big
clumps of trees that protected every dwelling were richly toned to rust
through scales of flame. Already there were signs that the day would be
hot, and Joanna sighed to think that approaching winter had demanded
that her new best black should be made of thick materials. She hated
black, too, and grimaced at her sombre frills, which the mourning brooch
and chain of jet beads could only embellish, never lighten. But she
would as soon have thought of jumping out of the window as of discarding
her mourning a day before the traditions of the Marsh decreed. She
decided not to wear her brooch and chain--the chain might swing and
catch in the beasts' horns as she inspected them, besides her values
demanded that she should be slightly more splendid in church than at
market, so her ornamen