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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
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