fishing-
tackle, butter, cheese, cordage, sailcloth, and many other commodities;
and was to bring back oil, furs, skins, fish, cranberries, and what else
came to hand. But much trading to other ports was to be undertaken
between the voyages out and homeward, and thereby much money made.

CHAPTER III

The brig sailed on a Monday morning in spring; but Joanna did not witness
its departure. She could not bear the sight that she had been the means
of bringing about. Knowing this, her husband told her overnight that
they were to sail some time before noon next day hence when, awakening at
five the next morning, she heard them bustling about downstairs, she did
not hasten to descend, but lay trying to nerve herself for the parting,
imagining they would leave about nine, as her husband had done on his
previous voyage. When she did descend she beheld words chalked upon the
sloping face of the bureau; but no husband or sons. In the
hastily-scrawled lines Shadrach said they had gone off thus not to pain
her by a leave-taking; and the sons had chalked under his words: 'Good-
bye, mother!'

She rushed to the quay, and looked down the harbour towards the blue rim
of the sea, but she could only see the masts and bulging sails of the
_Joanna_; no human figures. ''Tis I have sent them!' she said wildly,
and burst into tears. In the house the chalked 'Good-bye' nearly broke
her heart. But when she had re-entered the front room, and looked across
at Emily's, a gleam of triumph lit her thin face at her anticipated
release from the thraldom of subservience.

To do Emily Lester justice, her assumption of superiority was mainly a
figment of Joanna's brain. That the circumstances of the merchant's wife
were more luxurious than Joanna's, the former could not conceal; though
whenever the two met, which was not very often now, Emily endeavoured to
subdue the difference by every means in her power.

The first summer lapsed away; and Joanna meagrely maintained herself by
the shop, which now consisted of little more than a window and a counter.
Emily was, in truth, her only large customer; and Mrs. Lester's kindly
readiness to buy anything and everything without questioning the quality
had a sting of bitterness in it, for it was the uncritical attitude of a
patron, and almost of a donor. The long dreary winter moved on; the face
of the bureau had been turned to the wall to protect the chalked words of
farewell, for Joanna could