nd hear him, and we'll make
much of you. Seriously, if my good cousin had known what she was
sending you to, she would have wished the 'Diana' should sink with you
on board, rather than get to the end of her voyage. It is quite
self-denial enough to come here--when one does not expect to gain
anything by it."

"Mr. Esthwaite! Egbert!" cried his wife. "Now you are caught!
Self-denial to come here! That is what you mean by all your talk about
the Colonies and England!"

"Don't be--silly,--my dear," said her husband. "These people would
think it so. I don't; but I am addressing myself to their prejudices.
Self-denial is what they are after."

"It is not what I am after," said Eleanor laughing. "I must break up
your prejudices."

"What are you after, then. Seriously, what are you going to those
barbarous islands for--putting friendship and all such regards out of
the question? Wheat takes you there,--without humbug? You must excuse
me--but you are a very extraordinary person to look at,--as a
missionary."

Eleanor could hardly help laughing. She doubted whether or no this was
a question to be answered; discerning a look of seriousness, as she
thought, beneath the gleam in her host's eyes, she chose to run the
risk of answering. She faced him, and them, as she spoke.

"I love Jesus. And I love to do his work, wherever he gives it to me;
or, as I am a woman and cannot do much, I am glad to help those who
can."

Mr. Esthwaite was put out a little. He had words on his lips that he
did not speak; and piled Eleanor's plate with various fruit dainties,
and drank one or two glasses of his Australian claret before he said
anything more; an interval occupied by Eleanor in cooling down after
her last speech, which had flushed her cheeks prodigiously.

"That's a sort of work to be done anywhere," he said finally, as if
Eleanor had but just spoken. "I am sure it can be done here, and much
better for you. Now see here--I like you. Don't you suppose, if you
were to try, you could persuade this Mr. Rhys to quit those regions of
darkness and come and take the same sort of work at Sydney that he is
doing there?"

"No."

"Seems decided!--" said Mr. Esthwaite humourously, looking towards his
wife. "I am afraid this gentleman is a positive sort of character.
Well!--there is no use in struggling against fate. My dear, take your
cousin off and give her some coffee. I will be there directly."

The ladies left him accordingly; and i