appreciated the joke, but Joanna's humour was not of that order.

"I don't like the idea," she said.

Mr. Pratt miserably clasped and unclasped his hands. He felt that one
day he would be crushed between his parishioners' hatred of change and
his fellow-priests' insistence on it--rumour said that the Squire's
elder son, Father Lawrence, was coming home before long, and the poor
little rector quailed to think of what he would say of the harmonium if
it was still in its place.

"I--er--Miss Godden--I feel our reputation is at stake. Visitors, you
know, come to our little church, and are surprised to find us so far
behind the times in our music. At Pedlinge we've only got a piano, but
I'm not worrying about that now.... Perhaps the harmonium might be
patched up enough for Pedlinge, where our services are not as yet Fully
Choral ... it all depends on how much money we collect."

"How much do you want?"

"Well, I'm told that a cheap, good make would be thirty pounds. We want
it to last us well, you see, as I don't suppose we shall ever have a
proper organ."

He handed her a little book in which he had entered the names of
subscribers.

"People have been very generous already, and I'm sure if your name is on
the list they will give better still."

The generosity of the neighbourhood amounted to five shillings from
Prickett of Great Ansdore, and half-crowns from Vine, Furnese, Vennal,
and a few others. As Joanna studied it she became possessed of two
emotions--one was a feeling that since others, including Great Ansdore,
had given, she could not in proper pride hold back, the other was a
queer savage pity for Mr. Pratt and his poor little collection--scarcely
a pound as the result of all his begging, and yet he had called it
generous....

She immediately changed her mind about the scheme, and going over to a
side table where an ink-pot and pen reposed on a woolly mat, she
prepared to enter her name in the little book.

"I'll give him ten shillings," she said to herself--"I'll have given
the most."

Mr. Pratt watched her. He found something stimulating in the sight of
her broad back and shoulders, her large presence had invigorated
him--somehow he felt self-confident, as he had not felt for years, and
he began to talk, first about the harmonium, and then about himself--he
was a widower with three pale little children, whom he dragged up
somehow on an income of two hundred a year.

Joanna was not listening. She w