they heard her with respect, which
did not, however, survive her departure at the introduction of pipes and
port.

"Out on the rampage again, is she?" said Southland to his neighbour.

"Well, if she busts that 'old idea' same as she bust the other 'old
idea' about crossing Kent sheep, all I can say is that it's Ansdore
she'll bust next."

"Whosumdever breaks pasture shall himself be broke," said Vine
oracularly.

"Surelye--surelye," assented the table.

"She's got pluck all the same," said Sir Harry.

But he was only an amateur.

"I don't hold for a woman to have pluck," said Vennal of Beggar's Bush,
"what do you say, Mr. Alce?"

"I say nothing, Mr. Vennal."

"Pluck makes a woman think she can do without a man," continued Vennal,
"when everyone knows, and it's in Scripture, that she can't. Now Joanna
Godden should ought to have married drackly minute Thomas Godden died
and left her Ansdore, instead of which she's gone on plunging like a
heifer till she must be past eight and twenty as I calculate--"

"Now, now, Mr. Vennal, we mustn't start anything personal of our lady
guest," broke in Furnese from the Chair, "we may take up her ideas or
take 'em down, but while she's the guest of this here Farmers' Club,
which is till eleven-thirty precise, we mustn't start arguing about her
age or matrimonious intentions. Anyways, I take it, that's a job for our
wives."

"Hear, hear," and Joanna passed out of the conversation, for who was
going to waste time either taking up or taking down a silly, tedious,
foreign, unsensible notion like ploughing grass?...

Indeed, it may be said that her glory had gone up in smoke--the smoke of
twenty pipes.

She had been obliged to leave the table just when it was becoming most
characteristic and convivial, and to retire forlorn and chilly in her
silken gown to the Woolpack parlour, where she and the landlady drank
innumerable cups of tea. It was an unwelcome reminder of the fact that
she was a woman, and that no matter how she might shine and impress the
company for an hour, she did not really belong to it. She was a guest,
not a member, of the Farmers' Club, and though a guest has more honour,
he has less fellowship and fun. It was for fellowship and fun that she
hungrily longed as she sat under the green lamp-shade of the Woolpack's
parlour, and discoursed on servants and the price of turkeys with Mrs.
Jupp, who was rather constrained and absent-minded owing to her
simultaneo