Since he had grown to manhood they no longer said in so many words:
"Look at Jean and follow his example," but every time he heard them say
"Jean did this--Jean does that," he understood their meaning and the
hint the words conveyed.

Their mother, an orderly person, a thrifty and rather sentimental woman
of the middle class, with the soul of a soft-hearted book-keeper, was
constantly quenching the little rivalries between her two big sons
to which the petty events of their life constantly gave rise. Another
little circumstance, too, just now disturbed her peace of mind, and
she was in fear of some complications; for in the course of the winter,
while her boys were finishing their studies, each in his own line, she
had made the acquaintance of a neighbour, Mme. Rosemilly, the widow of a
captain of a merchantman who had died at sea two years before. The young
widow--quite young, only three-and-twenty--a woman of strong intellect
who knew life by instinct as the free animals do, as though she
had seen, gone through, understood, and weighted every conceivable
contingency, and judged them with a wholesome, strict, and benevolent
mind, had fallen into the habit of calling to work or chat for an hour
in the evening with these friendly neighbours, who would give her a cup
of tea.

Father Roland, always goaded on by his seafaring craze, would question
their new friend about the departed captain; and she would talk of him,
and his voyages, and his old-world tales, without hesitation, like a
resigned and reasonable woman who loves life and respects death.

The two sons on their return, finding the pretty widow quite at home in
the house, forthwith began to court her, less from any wish to charm her