told Villari that he would
be glad if he would come to dinner at seven o'clock.

"We are a large party now, Mr. Villari. Besides Mrs. Marston and my wife
and myself there are my two partners, Budd and Meredith, and two white
overseers. The latter don't sleep in the house, but they have their
meals with us."

Villari accepted the invitation, and at six o'clock landed in his boat
and met Raymond and his partners, who had just finished the day's work
and were on their way to the house. On the verandah they were received
by the ladies, and Mrs. Marston was glad to observe that the Italian
took her outstretched hand without any trace of embarrassment, asked if
her baby was thriving, and then greeted Mrs. Raymond, who said she was
glad to see him looking so well, and wished him prosperity with the
_Lupetea_.

The dinner passed off very well. Villari made inquiries as to the
whereabouts of the _Esmeralda_, and Mrs. Marston told him all that she
knew, and added that if the ship had arrived in Sydney from Valparaiso
about eight weeks before, as Frewen had indicated was likely in the
last letter received from him, it was quite possible that he would be at
Samatau within another ten or fourteen days, and then, as there was no
necessity for concealment, she said it was very probable that the ship's
next voyage would be to the Western Pacific to procure labourers for the
new plantation.

"You have no intention, I trust, of making the voyage in her, Mrs.
Marston?" queried the Italian; "the natives, I hear, are a very
treacherous lot."

"No, indeed, Mr. Villari. I am staying here with Mrs. Raymond for quite
a long time yet, I hope. It is quite likely, though, that before a year
has gone she and I will be going to Sydney and our babies will make the
trip with us. I have never been to Australia, and am sure I should enjoy
being there if Mrs. Raymond were with me. I have two years' shopping to
do."

Rudd--one of Raymond's partners--laughed. "Ah, Mrs. Raymond, why go to
Sydney when all of the few other white ladies here are satisfied with
Dennis Murphy's 'Imporium' at Apia, where, as he says, 'Yez can get
annything ye do be wantin' from a nadle to an anchor, from babies' long
clothes to pickled cabbage and gunpowder.'"

"Indeed, we are going there this day week," broke in Mrs. Raymond.
"There are a lot of things Mrs. Marston and I want, and we mean to turn
the 'Emporium' upside down. But we are not entirely selfish, Tom; we are