Her sister came at Thomas-tide, and Joanna drove in to meet her at Rye.  Brodnyx had now a station of its own on the new light railway from Appledore to Lydd, but Joanna was still faithful to Rye.  She loved the spanking miles, the hard white lick of road that flew under her wheels as she drove through Pedlinge, and then, swinging round the throws, flung out on the Straight Mile.  She trotted under the Land Gate, feeling pleasantly that all the town was watching her from shop and street.  Her old love of swagger had come back, with perhaps a slight touch of defiance.

At the station she had to wake old Stuppeny out of his slumber on the back seat, and put him in his proper place at Smiler’s head, while she went on the platform.  The train was just due, and she had not passed many remarks with the ticket-collector—­a comely young fellow whom she liked for his build and the sauciness of his tongue—­before it arrived.  As it steamed in, her heart began to beat anxiously—­she bit her lip, and actually looked nervous.  Ellen was the only person in the world who could make her feel shy and ill at ease, and Ellen had only lately acquired this power; but there had been a constraint about their meetings for the last year.  During the last year Ellen had become terribly good-mannered and grown up, and somehow that first glimpse of the elegant maiden whom her toil and sacrifice had built out of little Ellen Godden of Ansdore, never failed to give Joanna a queer sense of awkwardness and inferiority.

To-day Ellen was more impressive, more “different” than ever.  She had been allowed to buy new clothes before leaving Folkestone, and her long blue coat and neat little hat made Joanna, for the first time in her life, feel tawdry and savage in her fur and feathers.  Her sister stepped down from her third-class carriage as a queen from her throne, beckoned to Rye’s one porter, and without a word pointed back into the compartment, from which he removed a handbag; whereat she graciously gave him twopence and proceeded to greet Joanna.

“Dear Jo,” she murmured, filling her embrace with a soft perfume of hair, which somehow stifled the “Hello, duckie” on the other’s tongue.

Joanna found herself turning to Rye’s one porter with inquiries after his wife and little boy, doing her best to take the chill off the proceedings.  She wished that Ellen wouldn’t give herself these airs.  It is true that they always wore off as Ansdore reasserted itself in old clothes and squabbles, but Joanna resented her first impressions.

However, her sister thawed a little on the drive home—­she was curious about the affairs of Brodnyx and Pedlinge, for her time in two worlds was at an end, and Ansdore was henceforth to give her its horizons.

“Will there be any parties at Christmas?” she asked.

“Sure to be,” said Joanna, “I’ll be giving one myself, and Mrs. Vine was telling me only yesterday as she’s a mind to have some neighbours in for whist.”