“Won’t there be any dancing?”

“Oh, it’s that what you’re after, is it?” said Joanna proudly.

“Mabel and Pauline are going to heaps of dances this Christmas—­and Myra West is coming out.  Mayn’t I come out, Joanna?”

“Come out o’ what, dearie?”

“Oh, you know—­put up my hair and go to balls.”

“You can put your hair up any day you please—­I put mine up at fifteen, and you’re turned seventeen now.  As for balls ...”

She broke off, a little at a loss as to how she was to supply this deficiency.  It would scarcely be possible for her to break into the enclosures of Dungemarsh Court—­especially since she had allowed herself to drop away from North Farthing House ... she had been a fool to do that—­Sir Harry might have helped her now.  But then ... her lips tightened....  Anyhow, he would not be at home for Christmas—­since Martin’s death he had sub-let the farm and was a good deal away; people said he had “come into” some money, left him by a former mistress, who had died more grateful than he deserved.

“I’ll do the best I can for you, duck,” said Joanna, “you shall have your bit of dancing—­and anyways I’ve got a fine, big surprise for you when we’re home.”

“What sort of a surprise?”

“That’s telling.”

Ellen, in spite of her dignity, was child enough to be intensely excited at the idea of a secret, and the rest of the drive was spent in baffled question and provoking answer.

“I believe it’s something for me to wear,” she said finally, as they climbed out of the trap at the front door—­“a ring, Joanna....  I’ve always wanted a ring.”

“It’s better than a ring,” said Joanna, “leastways it’s bigger,” and she laughed to herself.

She led the way upstairs, while Mrs. Tolhurst and old Stuppeny waltzed recriminatingly with Ellen’s box.

“Where are you taking me?” asked her sister, pausing with her hand on the door-knob of Joanna’s bedroom.

“Never you mind—­come on.”

Would Mene Tekel, she wondered, have remembered to set the lamps, so that the room should not depend on the faint gutter of sunset to display its glories?  She opened the door, and was reassured—­a fury of light and colour leapt out—­rose, blue, green, buff, and the port-wine red of mahogany.  The pink curtains were drawn, but there was no fire in the grate—­for fires in bedrooms were unknown at Ansdore; however, a Christmas-like effect was given by sprigs of holly stuck in the picture-frames, and a string of paper flowers hung from the bed-tester to the top of the big woolly bell-rope by the mantelpiece.  Joanna heard her sister gasp.

“It’s yours, Ellen—­your new room.  I’ve given it to you—­all to yourself.  There’s the spare mahogany furniture, and the best pictures, and poor father’s Buffalo certificate.”

The triumph of her own achievement melted away the last of her uneasiness—­she seized Ellen in her arms and kissed her, knocking her hat over one ear.