e situation, the glib way she spoke of divorce,
the insult she flung at the respectable form of Huxtable, Vidler and
Huxtable by suggesting that Arthur should consult "a really good lawyer
in London," all showed how far she had travelled from the ways of
Walland Marsh.

"What's she after now?" asked Joanna.

"Reckon they're getting tired of each other."

"She don't say so."

"No--she wants to find out which way the land lays first."

"I'll write and tell her she can come back and live along of me, if she
won't go to you."

"Then I'll have to be leaving these parts--I couldn't be at Donkey
Street and her at Ansdore."

"Reckon you could--she can go out of the way when you call."

"It wouldn't be seemly."

"Where ud you go?"

"I've no notion. But reckon all this ain't the question yet. Ellen won't
come back to you no more than she'll come back to me."

"She'll just about have to come if she gets shut of the Old Squire,
seeing as she's got no more than twelve pounds a year of her own. Reckon
poor father was a wise man when he left Ansdore to me and not to both of
us--you'd almost think he'd guessed what she was coming to."

Joanna wrote to Ellen and made her offer. Her sister wrote back at great
length, and rather pathetically--"Harry" was going on to Venice, and she
did not think she would go with him--"when one gets to know a person,
Jo, one sometimes finds they are not quite what one thought them." She
would like to be by herself for a bit, but she did not want to come back
to Ansdore, even if Arthur went away--"it would be very awkward after
what has happened." She begged Jo to be generous and make her some small
allowance--"Harry would provide for me if he hadn't had such terrible
bad luck--he never was very well off, you know, and he can't manage
unless we keep together. I know you wouldn't like me to be tied to him
just by money considerations."

Joanna was bewildered by the letter. She could have understood Ellen
turning in horror and loathing from the partner of her guilt, but she
could not understand this wary and matter-of-fact separation. What was
her sister made of? "Harry would provide for me" ... would she really
have accepted such a provision? Joanna's ears grew red. "I'll make her
come home," she exclaimed savagely--"she'll have to come if she's got no
money."

"Maybe she'll stop along of him," said Arthur.

"Then let her--I don't care. But she shan't have my money to live on by
herself