rs."

"Is it true he is going there, mamma?"

"I am sure I can't tell. Miss Broadus says so; and she says, I believe,
he told her so himself. If he did, I suppose it is true."

"Mamma, I think Mr. Rhys is a great deal too fine a man to go and lose
his life in such a place. Miss Broadus says it is horrible. Do you know
anything about it?"

"I have no taste for horrors," said Mrs. Powle.

"I think it is a great pity," Eleanor repeated. "I am sorry. There is
enough in England for such a man to do, without going to the South
Seas. I wonder how anybody can leave England!"

Mrs. Powle looked up at her daughter and laughed. Eleanor had suspended
her drawing and was sending a loving gaze out of the open window, where
nature and summer were revelling in their conjoined riches. Art shewed
her hand too, stealthily, having drawn out of the way of the others
whatever might encumber the revel. Across a wide stretch of wooded and
cultivated country, the eye caught the umbrageous heights on the
further side of the valley of the Ryth. Eleanor's gaze was fixed. Mrs.
Powle's glance was sly.

"I should like to ask your opinion of another place," she
said,--"which, being in England, is not horrible. You see that bit of
brown mason-work, high away there, peeping out above the trees in the
distance?--You know what house that is?"

"Certainly."

"What is it?"

"It is the Priory. The new Priory, it ought to be called; I am sure the
old one is down there in the valley yet--beneath it." But Eleanor's
colour rose.

"What do you think of that place?"

"Considering that the old priory and its grounds belong to it, I think
it must be one of the loveliest places in England."

"I should like to see it in your possession--" Mrs. Powle remarked,
going on with her tissue paper.

Eleanor also went on assiduously with her drawing, and her colour
remained a rich tint. But she went on frankly with her words too.

"I am not sure, mamma, that I like the owner of it well enough to
receive such a valuable gift from him."

"He likes you, quite well enough to bestow it on you, without asking
any questions," said Mrs. Powle. "He hardly thinks it is worth having,
unless you have it too."

"That is inconvenient," said Eleanor.

"It strikes me the other way," said her mother.

"How do you know this, which you affirm so securely, mamma?"

"How should I know it? The person in question told me himself."

"Told you in so many words?"

"No, in