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 sometimes came as a dim flush, and the younger generation of the Three Marshes was inclined to revolt from the standards of its fathers.

So young Stacey Vine kissed her daringly under the mistletoe at the passage bend, and was rewarded with a gasp of sweet scent, which made him talk a lot at the Woolpack.  While Tom Southland, a man of few words, went home and closed with his father’s offer of a partnership in his farm, which hitherto he had thought of setting aside in favour of an escape to Australia.  Ellen was pleased at the time, but a night’s thought made her scornful.

“Don’t you know any really nice people?” she asked Joanna.  “Why did you send me to school with gentlemen’s daughters if you just meant me to mix with common people when I came out?”

“You can mix with any gentlefolk you can find to mix with.  I myself have been engaged to marry a gentleman’s son, and his father would have come to my party if he hadn’t been away for Christmas.”