, in others younger. Her skin, richly weather-beaten into
reds and browns, and her strong, well-developed figure in its
old-fashioned stays, made her look older than her eyes, which had an
expectant, childish gravity in their brightness, and than her mouth,
which was still a young woman's mouth, large, eager, full-lipped, with
strong, little, white teeth. Her hair was beautiful--it had no
sleekness, but, even in its coils, looked rough and abundant, and it
had the same rich, apple-red colours in it as her skin.

She still had plenty of admirers, for the years had made her more rather
than less desirable in herself, and men had grown used to her
independence among them. Moreover, she was a "catch," a maid with money,
and this may have influenced the decorous, well-considered offers she
had about this time from farmers inland as well as on the Marsh. She
refused them decidedly--nevertheless, it was obvious that she was well
pleased to have been asked; these solid, estimable proposals testified
to a quality in her life which had not been there before.

Yes--she had done well for herself on the whole, she thought. Looking
back over her life, over the ten years she had ruled at Ansdore, she saw
success consistently rewarding hard work and high ambition. She saw,
too, strange gaps--parts of the road which had grown dim in her memory,
parts where probably there had been a turning, where she might have left
this well-laid, direct and beaten highway for more romantic field-paths.
It was queer, when she came to think of it, that nothing in her life had
been really successful except Ansdore, that directly she had turned off
her high-road she had become at once as it were bogged and lantern-led.
Socknersh ... Martin ... Ellen ... there had been by-ways, dim paths
leading into queer unknown fields, a strange beautiful land, which now
she would never know.

Sec.22

Ellen watched her sister's thriving. "She's almost a lady," she said to
herself, "and it's wasted on her." She was inclined to be dissatisfied
with her own position in local society. When she had first married she
had not thought it would be difficult to get herself accepted as
"county" in the new neighbourhood, but she had soon discovered that she
had had far more consequence as Joanna Godden's sister than she would
ever have as Arthur Alce's wife. Even in those days Little Ansdore had
been a farm of the first importance, and Joanna was at least notorious
where