PART TWO
FIRST LOVE
§ 1
It took Joanna nearly two years to recover from the loss of her sheep. Some people would have done it earlier, but she was not a clever economist. Where many women on the marsh would have thrown themselves into an orgy of retrenchment—ranging from the dismissal of a dairy-maid to the substitution of a cheaper brand of tea—she made no new occasions for thrift, and persevered but lamely in the old ones. She was fond of spending—liked to see things trim and bright; she hated waste, especially when others were guilty of it, but she found a positive support in display.
She was also generous. Everybody knew that she had paid Dick Socknersh thirty shillings for the two weeks that he was out of work after leaving her—before he went as cattleman to an inland farm—and she had found the money for Martha Tilden's wedding, and for her lying-in a month afterwards; and some time later she had helped Peter Relf with ready cash to settle his debts and move himself and his wife and baby to West Wittering, where he had the offer of a place with three shillings a week more than they gave at Honeychild.
She might have indulged herself still further in this way, which gratified both her warm heart and her proud head, if she had not wanted so much to send Ellen to a good school. The school at Rye was all very well, attended by the daughters of tradesmen and farmers, and taught by
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