By means of this connection, Charlotte presently found employment for her skill in fine needlework.

Mrs.Peak was incapable of earning money, but the experiences of her early married life enabled her to make more than the most of the pittance at her disposal.
Miss Cadman was a woman of active mind, something of a busy-body--dogmatic, punctilious in her claims to respect, proud of the acknowledgment by her acquaintances that she was not as other tradespeople; her chief weakness was a fanatical ecclesiasticism, the common blight of English womanhood.

Circumstances had allowed her a better education than generally falls to women of that standing, and in spite of her shop she succeeded in retaining the friendship of certain ladies long ago her schoolfellows.

Among these were the Misses Lumb--middle-aged sisters, who lived at Twybridge on a small independence, their time chiefly devoted to the support of the Anglican Church.

An eldest Miss Lumb had been fortunate enough to marry that growing potentate of the Midlands, Mr.Job Whitelaw.