and
made it a rather wonderful and terrible occasion to most dwellers on the
Marsh.

To begin with, the invitations were not delivered, according to custom,
verbally in the churchyard after Morning Prayer on Sunday--they were
written on cards, as Mrs. Saville of Dungemarsh Court wrote them, and
distributed through the unwonted and expensive medium of the post. When
their recipients had done exclaiming over the waste of a penny stamp,
they were further astonished to see the word "Music" written in the
corner--Joanna had stuck very closely to her Dungemarsh Court model.
What could the music be? Was the Brodnyx Brass Band going to play? Or
had Joanna hired Miss Patty Southland, who gave music lessons on the
Marsh?

She had done neither of these things. When her visitors assembled,
stuffed into her two parlours, while the eatables were spread in a
kitchen metamorphosed with decorations of crinkled paper, they found,
buttressed into a corner by the freshly tuned piano, the Rye Quartet,
consisting of the piano-tuner himself, his wife, who played the 'cello,
and his two daughters with fiddles and white pique frocks. At first the
music was rather an embarrassment, for while it played eating and
conversation were alike suspended, and the guests stood with open mouths
and cooling cups of tea till Mr. Plummer's final chords released their
tongues and filled their mouths with awkward simultaneousness. However,
after a time the general awe abated, and soon the Rye Quartet was
swamped in a terrific noise of tongues and mastication.

Everyone was staring at Joanna's dress, for it was Low--quite four
inches of her skin must have shown between its top most frill and the
base of her sturdy throat. The sleeves stopped short at the elbow,
showing a very soft, white forearm, in contrast with brown, roughened
hands. Altogether it was a daring display, and one or two of the Miss
Vines and Southlands and Furneses wondered "how Joanna could do it."

Proudly conscious of the eyes fixed upon her, she moved--or rather, it
must be confessed, squeezed--about among her guests. She had put on new
manners with her new clothes, and was full of a rather mincing civility.

"Pray, Mrs. Cobb, may I get you another cup of tea?"--"Just one more
piece of cake, Mr. Alce?"--"Oh, please, Miss Prickett--just a leetle bit
of ham."

Ellen followed her sister about, pulling at her skirt. She was dressed
in white, and her hair was crimped, and tied with pink ri