Bradshaw did not dislike confessing his wife's errors), rather
less firm than he should have liked with the girls; and with some
people, he believed, Jemima was rather headstrong; but to his wishes
she had always shown herself obedient. All children were obedient,
if their parents were decided and authoritative; and every one would
turn out well, if properly managed. If they did not prove good, they
must take the consequences of their errors.

Mrs Bradshaw murmured faintly at her husband when his back was
turned; but if his voice was heard, or his footsteps sounded in the
distance, she was mute, and hurried her children into the attitude or
action most pleasing to their father. Jemima, it is true, rebelled
against this manner of proceeding, which savoured to her a little of
deceit; but even she had not, as yet, overcome her awe of her father
sufficiently to act independently of him, and according to her own
sense of right--or rather, I should say, according to her own warm,
passionate impulses. Before him the wilfulness which made her dark
eyes blaze out at times was hushed and still; he had no idea of her
self-tormenting, no notion of the almost southern jealousy which
seemed to belong to her brunette complexion. Jemima was not pretty;
the flatness and shortness of her face made her almost plain; yet
most people looked twice at her expressive countenance, at the eyes
which flamed or melted at every trifle, at the rich colour which
came at every expressed emotion into her usually sallow face, at
the faultless teeth which made her smile like a sunbeam. But then,
again, when she thought she was not kindly treated, when a suspicion
crossed her mind, or when she was angry with herself, her lips were
tight-pressed together, her colour was wan and almost livid, and a
stormy gloom clouded her eyes as with a film. But before her father
her words were few, and he did not notice looks or tones.

Her brother Richard had been equally silent before his father in
boyhood and early youth; but since he had gone to be clerk in a
London house, preparatory to assuming his place as junior partner in
Mr Bradshaw's business, he spoke more on his occasional visits at
home. And very proper and highly moral was his conversation; set
sentences of goodness, which were like the flowers that children
stick in the ground, and that have not sprung upwards from
roots--deep down in the hidden life and experience of the heart. He
was as severe a judg