itting
himself with Joanna Godden.

Sec.11

Dinner on Christmas Day was always in the kitchen at Ansdore. When
Joanna reached home with Martin, the two tables, set end to end, were
laid--with newly ironed cloths and newly polished knives, but with the
second-best china only, since many of the guests were clumsy. Joanna
wished there had been time to get out the best china, but there was not.

Ellen came flying to meet them, in a white serge frock tied with a red
sash.

"Arthur Alce has come, Jo--we're all waiting. Is Mr. Trevor coming too?"
and she put her head on one side, looking up at him through her long
fringe.

"Yes, duckie. Mr. Trevor's dropped in to taste our turkey and plum
pudding--to see if they ain't better than his own to-night."

"Is he going to have another turkey and plum pudding to-night? How
greedy!"

"Be quiet, you sassy little cat"--and Joanna's hand swooped, missing
Ellen's head only by the sudden duck she gave it.

"Leave me alone, Joanna--you might keep your temper just for Christmas
Day."

"I won't have you sass strangers."

"I wasn't sassing."

"You was."

"I wasn't."

Martin felt scared.

"I hope you don't mean me by the stranger," he said, taking up lightness
as a weapon, "I think I know you well enough to be sassed--not that I
call that sassing."

"Well, it's good of you not to mind," said Joanna, "personally I've
great ideas of manners, and Ellen's brought back some queer ones from
her school, though others she's learned are beautiful. Fancy, she never
sat down to dinner without a serviette."

"Never," said Ellen emphatically.

Martin appeared suitably impressed. He thought Ellen a pretty little
thing, strangely exotic beside her sister.

Dinner was ready in the kitchen, and they all went in, Joanna having
taken off her coat and hat and smoothed her hair. Before they sat down
there were introductions to Arthur Alce and to Luck and Broadhurst and
Stuppeny and the other farm people. The relation between employer and
employed was at once more patriarchal and less sharply defined at
Ansdore than it was at North Farthing--Martin tried to picture his
father sitting down to dinner with the carter and the looker and the
housemaid ... it was beyond imagination, yet Joanna did it quite
naturally. Of course there was a smaller gulf between her and her
people--the social grades were inclined to fuse on the Marsh, and the
farmer was only just better than his looker--but on