want to marry for, at her age, and a boy like that?"

"She's getting an old fool, I reckon."

Sec.26

The date of the wedding was not yet fixed, though September was spoken
of rather vaguely, and this time the hesitation came from the
bridegroom. As on the occasion of her first engagement Joanna had made
difficulties with the shearing and hay-making, so now Albert contrived
and shifted in his anxiety to fit in his marriage with other plans.

He had, it appeared, as far back as last Christmas, arranged for a
week's tour in August with the Polytechnic to Lovely Lucerne. In vain
Joanna promised him a liberal allowance of "Foreign Parts" for their
honeymoon--Bertie's little soul hankered after the Polytechnic, his pals
who were going with him, and the kindred spirits he would meet at the
chalets. Going on his honeymoon as Joanna Godden's husband was a
different matter and could not take the place of such an excursion.

Joanna did not press him. She was terribly afraid of scaring him off. It
had occurred to her more than once that his bonds held him far more
lightly than she was held by hers. And the prospect of marriage was now
an absolute necessity if she was to endure her memories. Marriage alone
could hallow and remake Joanna Godden. Sometimes, as love became less of
a drug and a bewilderment, her thoughts awoke, and she would be
overwhelmed by an almost incredulous horror at herself. Could this be
Joanna Godden, who had turned away her dairy-girl for loose behaviour,
who had been so shocked at the adventures of her sister Ellen? She could
never be shocked at anyone again, seeing that she herself was just as
bad and worse than anyone she knew.... Oh, life was queer--there was no
denying. It took you by surprise in a way you'd never think--it made you
do things so different from your proper notions that afterwards you
could hardly believe it was you that had done them--it gave you joy that
should ought to have been sorrow ... and pain as you'd never think.

As the summer passed and the time for her visit to town drew near,
Joanna began to grow nervous and restless. She did not like the idea of
going to a place like London, though she dared not confess her fears to
the travelled Ellen or the metropolitan Bertie. She felt vaguely that
"no good would come of it"--she had lived thirty-eight years without
setting foot in London, and it seemed like tempting Providence to go
there now....

However she resigned hers