The London and St Katherine’s Docks (now amalgamated under one Company) cover an area of about forty-five acres, and have nearly as much warehouse accommodation as all the other Dock companies put together. The capital embarked in them, inclusive of loans and debentures, may be stated at about eight millions sterling, and the employés of all classes about three thousand daily. The annual imports into these Docks are seldom less than seventy millions, the exports being also considerable. With all this enormous trade and this vast amount of business, things are managed with great, though of course not perfect accuracy; every man knows his place, and there are seldom any mistakes but such as will occur at times from unavoidable hurry and confusion.
All the women are jealous of her; there is no doubt about that. The first time she appears in church with crisp mauve muslins floating about her and a dainty mauve erection on her head, which presumably she calls a bonnet, I know at once how it will be. And of course the other sex will range themselves on her side to a man; that is also beyond question. As she rises from her knees and takes her little lavender-gloved hands from her face and looks about her for a moment with a sweet shy glance, she is simply bewitching; and I doubt if any male creature in our musty little church pays proper attention to the responses for ten minutes afterwards. A new face is a great rarity with us, and _such_ a new face one might not see more than once in a decade, so let us hope we may be forgiven.
As I gaze at the delicate profile before me, the coils of golden hair, the complexion like the inside of a sea-shell, the slender milk-white throat, and the long dark eyelashes, which droop modestly over the glorious gray eyes, shall I own that I steal a glance of disapproval at Mary Anne, my Mary Anne, the partner of my joys and sorrows for twenty years, and the mother of my six children? Mary Anne’s figure is somewhat overblown, her hair is tinged with gray, and the complexion of her good-humoured face is slightly rubicund. But she has been a good wife to me; and I feel, with a twinge of compunction, that I have no right to be critical, as I think of a shining spot on the top of my own head, and of a little box I received from the dentist only a month ago, carefully secured from observation. But as we emerge from church I draw myself up and try to look my best as we pass the trailing mauve robes. Jack, one of our six, stumbles over the train; which gives me an opportunity of raising my hat and apologising for the brat’s awkwardness; and I am rewarded with a sweet smile and an upward glance out of the great gray eyes which is simply intoxicating.