ound in intensely simple natures, and Joanna felt equal to
managing the "head" part of the business for both. It pleased her to
think that the looker--who is always the principal man on a farm such as
Ansdore, where sheep-rearing is the main business--deferred to her
openly, before the other hands, spoke to her with drawling respect, and
for ever followed her with his humble eyes.

She liked to feel those eyes upon her. All his strength and bigness, all
his manhood, huge and unaware, seemed to lie deep in them like a monster
coiled up under the sea. When he looked at her he seemed to lose that
heavy dumbness, that inarticulate stupidity which occasionally stirred
and vexed even her good disposition; his mouth might still be shut, but
his eyes were fluent--they told her not only of his manhood but of her
womanhood besides.

Socknersh lived alone in the looker's cottage which had always belonged
to Ansdore. It stood away on the Kent Innings, on the very brink of the
Ditch, which here gave a great loop, to allow a peninsula of Sussex to
claim its rights against the Kentish monks. It was a lonely little
cottage, all rusted over with lichen, and sometimes Joanna felt sorry
for Socknersh away there by himself beside the Ditch. She sent him over
a flock mattress and a woollen blanket, in case the old ague-spectre of
the Marsh still haunted that desolate corner of water and reeds.

Sec.12

Towards the end of that autumn, Joanna and Ellen Godden came out of
their mourning. As was usual on such occasions, they chose a Sunday for
their first appearance in colours. Half mourning was not worn on the
Marsh, so there was no interval of grey and violet between Joanna's
hearse-like costume of crape and nodding feathers and the tan-coloured
gown in which she astonished the twin parishes of Brodnyx and Pedlinge
on the first Sunday in November. Her hat was of sage green and contained
a bird unknown to natural history. From her ears swung huge jade
earrings, in succession to the jet ones that had dangled against her
neck on Sundays for a year--she must have bought them, for everyone knew
that her mother, Mary Godden, had left but one pair.

Altogether the sight of Joanna was so breathless, that a great many
people never noticed Ellen, or at best only saw her hat as it went past
the tops of their pews. Joanna realized this, and being anxious that no
one should miss the sight of Ellen's new magenta pelisse with facings of
silver br