the plainest, but, being by the sea, they grew alert in all such
nautical arts and enterprises as were attractive to their age.

The great interest of the Jolliffes' married life, outside their own
immediate household, had lain in the marriage of Emily. By one of those
odd chances which lead those that lurk in unexpected corners to be
discovered, while the obvious are passed by, the gentle girl had been
seen and loved by a thriving merchant of the town, a widower, some years
older than herself, though still in the prime of life. At first Emily
had declared that she never, never could marry any one; but Mr. Lester
had quietly persevered, and had at last won her reluctant assent. Two
children also were the fruits of this union, and, as they grew and
prospered, Emily declared that she had never supposed that she could live
to be so happy.

The worthy merchant's home, one of those large, substantial brick
mansions frequently jammed up in old-fashioned towns, faced directly on
the High Street, nearly opposite to the grocery shop of the Jolliffes,
and it now became the pain of Joanna to behold the woman whose place she
had usurped out of pure covetousness, looking down from her position of
comparative wealth upon the humble shop-window with its dusty
sugar-loaves, heaps of raisins, and canisters of tea, over which it was
her own lot to preside. The business having so dwindled, Joanna was
obliged to serve in the shop herself; and it galled and mortified her
that Emily Lester, sitting in her large drawing-room over the way, could
witness her own dancings up and down behind the counter at the beck and
call of wretched twopenny customers, whose patronage she was driven to
welcome gladly: persons to whom she was compelled to be civil in the
street, while Emily was bounding along with her children and her
governess, and conversing with the genteelest people of the town and
neighbourhood. This was what she had gained by not letting Shadrach
Jolliffe, whom she had so faintly loved, carry his affection elsewhere.

Shadrach was a good and honest man, and he had been faithful to her in
heart and in deed. Time had clipped the wings of his love for Emily in
his devotion to the mother of his boys: he had quite lived down that
impulsive earlier fancy, and Emily had become in his regard nothing more
than a friend. It was the same with Emily's feelings for him. Possibly,
had she found the least cause for jealousy, Joanna would almos