stile to be
trusted.

The tyrant groaned under the heel of her victim. She was used to
quarrels, but this was her first experience of a prolonged estrangement.
It had been all very well to box Ellen's ears as a child, and have her
shins kicked in return, and then an hour or two later be nursing her on
her lap to the tune of "There was an Old Woman," or "Little Boy
Blue".... But this dragged out antagonism wore down her spirits into a
long sadness. It was the wrong start for that happy home she had
planned, in which Ellen, the little sister, was to absorb that
overflowing love which had once been Martin's, but which his memory
could not hold in all its power.

It seemed as if she would be forced to acknowledge Ellen's education as
another of her failures. She had sent her to school to be made a lady
of, but the finished article was nearly as disappointing as the
cross-bred lambs of Socknersh's unlucky day. If Ellen had wanted to lie
abed of a morning, never to do a hand's turn of work, or had demanded a
table napkin at all her meals, Joanna would have humoured her and
bragged about her. But, on the contrary, her sister had learned habits
of early rising at school, and if left to herself would have been busy
all day with piano or pencil or needle of the finer sort. Also she found
more fault with the beauties of Ansdore's best parlour than the rigours
of its kitchen; there lay the sting--her revolt was not against the
toils and austerities of the farm's life but against its glories and
comelinesses. She despised Ansdore for its very splendours, just as she
despised her sister's best clothes more than her old ones.

By Christmas Day things had righted themselves a little. Ellen was too
young to sulk more than a day or two, and she began to forget her
grievances in the excitement of the festival. There was the usual
communal midday dinner, with Arthur Alce back in his old place at
Joanna's right hand. Alce had behaved like a gentleman, and refused to
take back the silver tea set, his premature wedding gift. Then in the
evening, Joanna gave a party, at which young Vines and Southlands and
Furneses offered their sheepish admiration to her sister Ellen. Of
course everyone was agreed that Ellen Godden gave herself lamentable
airs, but she appealed to her neighbours' curiosity through her queer,
exotic ways, and the young men found her undeniably beautiful--she had a
thick, creamy skin, into which her childhood's roses sometim