This was a bad beginning, for Joanna flamed at once at the implication that her spinsterhood put her at any disadvantage as a woman of the world.
"Don't talk nonsense, Mrs. Tolhurst; I may be unwed as yet, but I'm none of your Misses."
"No, ma'am—well, it's about this Martha Tilden—"
Joanna started.
"What about her?"
"Only, ma'am, that she's six months gone."
There was no chair in the larder, or Joanna would have fallen into it—instead she staggered back against the shelves, with a great rattle of crockery. Her face was as white as her own plates, and for a moment she could not speak.
"I made bold to tell you, Miss Joanna, for all the neighbourhood's beginning to talk—and the gal getting near her time and all.... I thought maybe you'd have noticed.... Don't be in such a terrification about it, Miss Joanna.... I'm sorry I told you—maybe I shud ought to have spuck to the gal fust ..."
"Don't be a fool ... the dirty slut!—I'll learn her ... under my very roof—"
"Oh, no, ma'am,'twasn't under your roof—we shouldn't have allowed it. She used to meet him in the field down by Beggar's Bush ..."