arly the next year Mr. Pratt faded out. He could not be said to have
done anything so dramatic as to die, though the green marsh-turf of
Brodnyx churchyard was broken to make him a bed, and the little bell
rocked in the bosom of the drunken Victorian widow who was Brodnyx
church steeple, sending a forlorn note out over the Marsh. Various aunts
in various stages of resigned poverty bore off his family to separate
destinations, and the great Rectory house which had for so long mocked
his two hundred a year, stood empty, waiting to swallow up its next
victim.

Only in Joanna Godden's breast did any stir remain. For her at least the
fading out of Mr. Pratt had been drama, the final scene of her
importance; for it was now her task to appoint his successor in the
living of Brodnyx with Pedlinge. Ever since she had found out that she
could not get rid of Mr. Pratt she had been in terror lest this crowning
triumph might be denied her, and the largeness of her funeral wreath and
the lavishness of her mourning--extinguishing all the relations in their
dyed blacks--had testified to the warmth of her gratitude to the late
rector for so considerately dying.

She felt exceedingly important, and the feeling was increased by the
applications she received for the living. Clergymen wrote from different
parts of the country; they told her that they were orthodox--as if she
had imagined a clergyman could be otherwise--that they were acceptable
preachers, that they were good with Boy Scouts. One or two she
interviewed and disliked, because they had bad teeth or large
families--one or two turned the tables on her and refused to have
anything to do with a living encumbered by so large a rectory and so
small an endowment. Joanna felt insulted, though she was not responsible
for either. She resolved not to consider any applicants, but to make her
own choice outside their ranks. This was a difficult matter, for her
sphere was hardly clerical, and she knew no clergy except those on the
Marsh. None of these she liked, because they were for the most part
elderly and went about on bicycles--also she wanted to dazzle her
society with a new importation.

The Archdeacon wrote to her, suggesting that she might be glad of some
counsel in filling the vacancy, and giving her the names of two men whom
he thought suitable. Joanna was furious--she would brook no interference
from Archdeacons, and wrote the gentleman a letter which must have been
unique in