don't leave the bread-making to
that cook-gal of hers. I never heard of such a notion--her laying on the
sofa while the gal wastes coal and flour." ... "Arthur, Ellen needs a
new churn--let her get a Wallis. It's a shame for her to be buying new
cushions when her churn's an old butter-spoiler I wouldn't use if I was
dead--Arthur, you're there with her, and you can make her do what I
say."

But Arthur could not, any more than Joanna, make Ellen do what she did
not want. He had always been a mild-mannered man, and he found Ellen, in
her different way, quite as difficult to stand up to as her sister.

"I'm not going to have Jo meddling with my affairs," she would say with
a toss of her head.

Sec.20

Another thing that worried Joanna was the fact that the passing year
brought no expectations to Donkey Street. One of her happiest
anticipations in connexion with Ellen's marriage was her having a dear
little baby whom Joanna could hug and spoil and teach. Perhaps it would
be a little girl, and she would feel like having Ellen over again.

She was bitterly disappointed when Ellen showed no signs of obliging her
quickly, and indeed quite shocked by her sister's expressed indifference
on the matter.

"I don't care about children, Jo, and I'm over young to have one of my
own."

"Young! You're rising twenty, and mother was but eighteen when I was
born."

"Well, anyhow, I don't see why I should have a child just because you
want one."

"I don't want one. For shame to say such things, Ellen Alce."

"You want me to have one, then, for your benefit."

"Don't you want one yourself?"

"No--not now. I've told you I don't care for children."

"Then you should ought to! Dear little mites! It's a shame to talk like
that. Oh, what wouldn't I give, Ellen, to have a child of yours in my
arms."

"Why don't you marry and have one of your own?"

Joanna coloured.

"I don't want to marry."

"But you ought to marry if that's how you feel. Why don't you take a
decent fellow like, say, Sam Turner, even if you don't love him, just so
that you may have a child of your own? You're getting on, you know,
Joanna--nearly thirty-four--you haven't much time to waste."

"Well it ain't my fault," said Joanna tearfully, "that I couldn't marry
the man I wanted to. I'd have been married more'n five year now if he
hadn't been took. And it's sorter spoiled the taste for me, as you might
say. I don't feel inclined to get married--it don'