n to an
accompaniment of grunts and wheezes from an ancient harmonium and the
dropping of pennies and threepenny bits into a wooden plate. Then the
congregation hurried out to the civilities of the churchyard.

From outside, Brodnyx Church looked still more Georgian and abandoned.
Its three aisles were without ornament or architecture; there was no
tower, but beside it stood a peculiar and unexplained erection, shaped
like a pagoda, in three tiers of black and battered tar-boarding. It
had a slight cant towards the church, and suggested nothing so much as a
disreputable Victorian widow, in tippet, mantle and crinoline, seeking
the support of a stone wall after a carouse.

In the churchyard, among the graves, the congregation assembled and
talked of or to Joanna. It was noticeable that the women judged her more
kindly than the men.

"She can't help her taste," said Mrs. Vine, "and she's a kind-hearted
thing."

"If you ask me," said Mrs. Prickett, "her taste ain't so bad, if only
she'd have things a bit quieter. But she's like a child with her yallers
and greens."

"She's more like an organist's monkey," said her husband. "What ud I do
if I ever saw you tricked out like that, Mrs. Prickett?"

"Oh, I'd never wear such clothes, master, as you know well. But then I'm
a different looking sort of woman. I wouldn't go so far as to say them
bright colours don't suit Joanna Godden."

"I never thought much of her looks."

"Nor of her looker--he! he!" joined in Furnese with a glance in Joanna's
direction.

She was talking to Dick Socknersh, who had been to church with the other
hands that could be spared from the farm. She asked him if he had liked
the sermon, and then told him to get off home quickly and give the tegs
their swill.

"Reckon he don't know a teg from a tup," said Furnese.

"Oh, surelye, Mr. Furnese, he aeun't a bad looker. Jim Harmer said he wur
just about wonderful with the ewes at the shearing."

"Maybe--but he'd three sway-backed lambs at Rye market on Thursday."

"Sway-backs!"

"Three. 'Twas a shame."

"But Joanna told me he was such a fine, wonderful man with the sheep--as
he got 'em to market about half as tired and twice as quick as Fuller
used to in his day."

"Ah, but then she's unaccountable set on young Socknersh. He lets her
do what she likes with her sheep, and he's a stout figure of a man, too.
Joanna Godden always was partial to stout-looking men."

"But she'd never be such a foo