obody else does; and he ought to
have left them with somebody else if he had them. But there can be
nothing wrong about it; there is only some mistake, or mischance; the
letters from Vuliva where brother Rhys is, are quite recent and
everything is going on most prosperously; himself included. And we are
to proceed to the same station. I am very glad for ourselves and for
you."

"Thank you--" Eleanor said; but she was not equal to saying much. She
listened quietly, and with her usual air, and Mr. Amos never discovered
the work his tidings wrought; he told his wife, sister Powle looked a
little blank, he thought, at missing her expected despatches, and no
wonder. It was an awkward thing.

Eleanor slowly made her way up to her room and sat down, feeling as if
the foundations of the earth, to _her_ standing, had given way. She was
more overwhelmed with dismay than she would have herself anticipated in
England, if she could have looked forward to such a catastrophe. Reason
said there was not sufficient cause; but poor Eleanor was to feel the
truth of Mrs. Caxton's prediction, that she would find out again that
certain feelings might be natural that were not reasonable. Nay, reason
said on this occasion that the failure of letters proved too much to
justify the distress she felt; it proved a combination of things, that
no carelessness nor indifference nor unwillingness to write, on the
part of Mr. Rhys, could possibly have produced. Let him feel how he
would, he would have written, he _must_ have written to meet her there;
all his own delicacy and his knowledge of hers affirmed and reaffirmed
that letters were in existence somewhere, though it might be at the
bottom of the ocean. Reason fought well; to what use, when nature
trembled, and shivered, and shrank. Poor Eleanor! she felt alone now,
without a mother and without shelter; and the fair shores of Port
Jackson looked very strange and desolate to her; a very foreign land,
far from home. What if Mr. Rhys, with his fastidious notions of
delicacy, did not fancy so bold a proceeding as her coming out to him?
what if he disapproved? What if, on further knowledge of the place and
the work, he had judged both unfit for her; and did not, for his own
sake only in a selfish point of view, choose to encourage her coming?
in that case her being _come_ would make no difference; he would not
shelter himself from a judgment displeasing to him, because the escape
from its decisions was