all their known customers a kindly welcome; shaking hands with many of them, and asking all after their families and domestic circumstances before proceeding to business.  They would not for the world have had any sign of festivity at Christmas, and scrupulously kept their shop open at that holy festival, ready themselves to serve sooner than tax the consciences of any of their assistants, only nobody ever came.  But on New Year’s Day they had a great cake, and wine, ready in the parlour behind the shop, of which all who came in to buy anything were asked to partake.  Yet, though scrupulous in most things, it did not go against the consciences of these good brothers to purchase smuggled articles.  There was a back way from the river-side, up a covered entry, to the yard-door of the Fosters, and a peculiar kind of knock at this door always brought out either John or Jeremiah, or if not them, their shopman, Philip Hepburn; and the same cake and wine that the excise officer’s wife might just have been tasting, was brought out in the back parlour to treat the smuggler.  There was a little locking of doors, and drawing of the green silk curtain that was supposed to shut out the shop, but really all this was done very much for form’s sake.  Everybody in Monkshaven smuggled who could, and every one wore smuggled goods who could, and great reliance was placed on the excise officer’s neighbourly feelings.

The story went that John and Jeremiah Foster were so rich that they could buy up all the new town across the bridge.  They had certainly begun to have a kind of primitive bank in connection with their shop, receiving and taking care of such money as people did not wish to retain in their houses for fear of burglars.  No one asked them for interest on the money thus deposited, nor did they give any; but, on the other hand, if any of their customers, on whose character they could depend, wanted a little advance, the Fosters, after due inquiries made, and in some cases due security given, were not unwilling to lend a moderate sum without charging a penny for the use of their money.  All the articles they sold were as good as they knew how to choose, and for them they expected and obtained ready money.  It was said that they only kept on the shop for their amusement.  Others averred that there was some plan of a marriage running in the brothers’ heads—­a marriage between William Coulson, Mr. Jeremiah’s wife’s nephew (Mr. Jeremiah was a widower), and Hester Rose, whose mother was some kind of distant relation, and who served in the shop along with William Coulson and Philip Hepburn.  Again, this was denied by those who averred that Coulson was no blood relation, and that if the Fosters had intended to do anything considerable for Hester, they would never have allowed her and her mother to live in such a sparing way, ekeing out their small income by having Coulson and Hepburn for lodgers.  No; John and Jeremiah would leave all their money to some hospital or to some charitable