34 THE OSBORNES AND

satisfaction was that Edwards retained his situation ;
and at the end of the second year received an increase
of salary, which Phebe did not fail to communi-
cate to her relations. Three years had now gone on,
and we are arrived at the period when our story opens.

The Osbornes and the Kendricks were, as we
have said, fast friends; the somewhat similar mar-
riages of Phebe and the unhappy Rebecca, had made,
for years, a great sympathy of feeling between them.
Mrs. Osborne was at their house, and sitting by the
side of Rebecca’s bed when she died, and her husband
had attended her to the grave.

Much attached, however, as they were to their
friends, they said nothing of the disgrace which had
befallen Rebecca’s husband and the father of the
nephew whom they had adopted, thinking, with a
natural and jealous feeling of family pride, that there
was no good in publishing the dishonour of one’s own
connexions.

Some such feeling as this operated on the mind of
good Mrs. Osborne as she sat in the dusk of evening
in the little parlour beside the shop, with the candles
unlighted, and heard her friend Miss Kendrick in-
quire with astonishment about Mr. Osborne's sudden
journey to London, of which Mr. Isaacs the shop-
man had told her. «

Yes, said Mrs. Osborne, but in an incommuni-
cative tone, her husband was suddenly called to Lon-
don by a letter from poor Phebe. She feared things
were going on but badly with them,—how, she did
not say, merely adding, “but I wish nothing to be
said about it; the least said the better, as we all
know.”

Joanna was a reasonable woman, and she excused