"My Lady comes; my Lady goes; he can see her day by day,
And bless his eyes with her beauty, and with blessings strew her way."

The breakfast-table was as much of a mystery to Eleanor as the dinner had been. Not because it looked so homelike; though in the early morning the doors and windows were all open and the sunlight streaming through on Mrs. Caxton's china cups and silver spoons. It all looked foreign enough yet, among those palm-fern pillars, and on the Fijian mat with its border made of red worsted ends and little white feathers. The basket of fruit, too, on the table, did not look like England. But the tea was unexceptionable, and there was a piece of fresh fish as perfectly broiled as if it had been brought over by some genius or fairy, smoking hot, from an English gridiron. And in the order and arrangements of the table, there had been something more than native skill and taste, Eleanor was sure.

"It seems to me, Mr. Rhys," she said, "that the Fijians are remarkably good cooks!"

"Uncommon, for savages," said Mr. Rhys with perfect gravity.

"This fish is excellent."

"There is no better fish-market in the world, for variety and abundance, than we have here."

"But I mean, it is broiled just like an English fish. Isaac Walton himself would be satisfied with it."

"Isaac Walton never saw such fishing as is carried on here. The natives are at home in the water from their childhood—men and women both;—and the women do a good deal of the fishing. But the serious business is the turtle fishing. It is a hand to hand conflict. The men plunge into the water and grapple bodily with the turtle, after they have brought them into an enclosure with their nets. Four or five men lay hold of one, if it is a large fellow, and they struggle together under water till the turtle thinks he has the worst of the bargain, and concludes to come to the surface."

"Does not the turtle sometimes get the better?"

"Sometimes."

"Mr. Rhys, have you any particular duty to-day?"

"I don't see how you can keep up that form of expression!" said he, with a comic gravity of dislike.

"Why not?"

"It is not treating me with proper confidence."

Her look in reply was so very pretty, both blushing and winsome, that the corners of his mouth were obliged to give way.

"You know what my first name is, do not you?"

"Yes," said Eleanor.

"The people about call me 'Misi Risi'—I am not going to have my wife a
Fijian to me."

The lights on Eleanor's face were very pretty. With the same contained smile he went on.

"I gave you my name yesterday. It is yours to do what you like with; but the greatest dishonour you can shew to a gift, is not to use it at all."

"That is the most comical putting of the case that ever I heard," said
Eleanor, quite unable to retain her own gravity.

"Very good sense," said Mr. Rhys, with a dry preservation of his.

"But after all," said Eleanor, "you gave me your second name, if you please—I do not know what I have to do with the first."

"You do not? Is it possible you think your name is Henry or James, or something else? You are Rowland Rhys as truly as I am—only you are the mistress, and I am the master."

Eleanor's look went over the table with something besides laughter in the brown eyes, which made them a gentle thing to see.

"Mr. Rhys, I am thinking, what you will do to this part of you to make it like the other?"

He gave her a glance, at which her eyes went down instantly.

"I do not know," he said with infinite gravity. "I will think about it.
Preaching does not seem to do you any good."

Eleanor bent her attention upon her bread and fruit. He spoke next with a change of tone, giving up his gravity.

"Do you know your particular duty to-day?"

"I thought," said Eleanor,—"that as yesterday you shewed me the head-carpenter, perhaps this morning you would let me see the chief cook."

"That is not the first thing. You must have a lesson in Fijian; now that I hope you are instructed in English."

He carried her off to his study to get it. The lesson was a matter of amusement to Mr. Rhys, but Eleanor set herself earnestly to learn. Then he said he supposed she might as well see her establishment at once, and took her out to the side of the house where she had not been.

It was a plantation wilderness here too, though particularly devoted to all that in Fiji could belong to a kitchen garden. English beans and peas had been sown, and were flourishing; most of the luxuriance that met the eye had a foreign character. Beautiful order was noticeable everywhere. Mr. Rhys seemed to have forgotten all about the servants; he pleased himself with leading Eleanor through the walks and shewing her which were the plants of the yam and the kumera and other native fruits and vegetables. Bananas were here too, and the graceful stems of the sugar cane; and overhead the cocoa-nut trees waved their feathery plumes in the air.

"Who did all this?" Eleanor asked admiringly.

"Solomon—with a head gardener over him."

"Solomon is—I saw him yesterday?"

"Yes. He came with me from Vulanga. He is a nice fellow. He is a Christian, as I told you; and a true labourer in the great vineyard. I believe he never misses an opportunity to speak to his countrymen in a quiet way and tell them the truth. He has brought a great many to know it. In my service he is very faithful."

"No wonder this garden looks nice," said Eleanor.

"I asked Solomon one day about his religious experience. He said he was very happy; he had enjoyed religion all the day. He said he rose early in the morning and prayed that the Lord would greatly bless him and keep him; and that it had been so, and generally was so when he attended to religious duties early in the morning. 'But if I neglect and rush into the world,' he said, 'without properly attending to my religious duties, nothing goes right. I am wrong in my own heart, and no one round me is right.'"

"Good testimony," said Eleanor. "Is he your cook as well as your gardener?"

"I had forgotten all about the cook," said Mr. Rhys. "Come and see the kitchen."

Near the main dwelling house, in this planted enclosure, were several smaller houses. Mr. Rhys at last took Eleanor that way, and permitted her to inspect them. The one nearest the main building was fitted for a laundry. The furthest was a sleeping house for the servants. The middle one was the kitchen. It was a Fijian kitchen. Here was a large fireplace, of the original fashion which had moved Eleanor's wonder in the dining-room; with a Fijian framework of wood at one side of it, holding native vessels of pottery, larger and smaller, and variously shaped, for cooking purposes. Some more homelike iron utensils were to be seen also; with other kitchen appurtenances, water jars and so forth. A fire had been in the fireplace, and the signs of cookery were remaining; but in all the houses, nobody was anywhere visible.

"Solomon is gone to collect your servants," said Mr. Rhys. "That explains the present solitude."

"Did he cook that fish?"

"I have not tried him in cooking," said Mr. Rhys with a gravity that was perfect. "I do not know what he could do if he was tried."

"Who did it then?"

His smile was wonderfully pleasant—now that it could be no longer kept back—as he answered, "Your servant."

"You, Rowland! And the dinner yesterday?"

"Do not praise me," he said with the same look, "lest I should spoil the dinner to-day. I do not expect there will be anybody here till afternoon."

"Then you shall see what I can do!"

"I do not believe you know how. I have been long enough in the wilderness to learn all trades. You never learned how to cook at Wiglands."

"But at Plassy I did."

"Did aunt Caxton let you into her kitchen?"

"Yes."

"I shall not let you into mine."

"She went with me there. I have not come out here to be useless. I will take care of the dinner to-day."

"No, you shall not," said Mr. Rhys, drawing her away from the kitchen. "You have got enough to do to-day in unpacking boxes. There will be servants this evening to attend to all you want; and for the present you are my care."

"Rowland, I should like it."

Which view of the case did not seem to be material. At least it was answered in a silencing kind of way, as with his arm about her he led her in through the bananas to the house. It silenced Eleanor effectually, in spite of being very serious in her wish. She put it away to bide another opportunity.

Mr. Rhys gave her something else to do, as he had said. The boxes had in part been brought from the schooner, and there was employment for both of them. He drew out nails, and took off covers, and did the rough unpacking; while the arranging and bestowing of the goods thus put under her disposal kept Eleanor very busy. His part of the work was finished long before hers, and Mr. Rhys withdrew to his study for some other work. Eleanor, happy and busy, with touched thoughts of Mrs. Caxton, put away blankets and clothes and linen and calicos, and unpacked glass, and stowed on her shelves a whole store of home comforts and necessaries; marvelling between whiles at Mr. Rhys's varieties of power in making himself useful and wishing she could do what she thought was better her work than his—the work to be done in the kitchen before the servants came home. By and by, Mr. Rhys came out of the study again, and found Eleanor sitting on the mat before a huge round hamper, uncovered, filled with Australian fruit. This was a late arrival, brought while he had been shut up at his work. Grapes and peaches and pears and apricots were crowded side by side in rich and beautiful abundance and confusion. Eleanor sat looking at it. She was in a working dress, of the brown stuff her aunt's maids wore at home; short sleeves left her arms bare to the elbow; and the full jacket and hoopless skirt did no wrong to a figure the soft outlines of which they only disclosed. Mr. Rhys stopped and stood still. Eleanor looked up.

"Mr. Esthwaite has sent these on in the schooner unknown to me! What shall I do with them all?"

"I don't know," said Mr. Rhys. "It is the penalty that attaches to wealth."

"But you said you never were poor?" said Eleanor, laughing at his look.

"I never was, in feeling. I never was in an embarrassment of riches, either. I can't help you!"

"But these are yours, Rowland. What are you talking of?"

"Are you going to make me a present of the whole?" said Mr. Rhys, stooping down for a grape.

"No, Mr. Esthwaite has done that. The embarrassment is yours."

"I am in no embarrassment; you are mistaken. By what right do you say that Mr. Esthwaite has sent these to me?"

"Because he sent them to me," said Eleanor. "It is the same thing."

"That is dutiful, and loyal, and all that sort of thing," said Mr. Rhys, helping himself to another grape, and looking with his keen eyes and imperturbable gravity at Eleanor. Perhaps he liked to see the scarlet bloom he could so easily call up in her cheeks, which was now accompanied with a little impatient glance at him. "Nevertheless, I do not consider myself to be within the scope of the gift. The disposition of it remains with you. I do not like the responsibilities of other people's wealth to rest on my shoulders."

"But this fruit is different from what we have on the island; is there not something you would like to have done with it?"

"I should like you to give me one bunch of grapes—to be chosen by yourself."

He looked on, with a satisfied expression of face, while Eleanor's fingers separated and overhauled the fruit till she had got a bunch to her mind; and stood still in his place to let her bring it to him. Then took possession of her and the grapes at once, neglecting the latter however entirely, to consider her.

"What would you like to have done with the rest, Rowland?" said
Eleanor, while her face glowed under his caresses and examination.

"This is a very becoming dress you have on!"

"I did not know you noticed ladies' dresses."

"I always notice my own."

Eleanor's head drooped a little, to hide the rush of pleasure and shame.

"But, Rowland," she said with gentle persistence, "what would you like to have done with that basket? Isn't there some meaning behind your words about it?"

"What makes you think so?" said he, curling the corners of his mouth in an amused way.

"I thought so. Please tell it me! You have something to tell me."

"The fruit is yours, Eleanor."

"And what am I?"

The tears came into her eyes with a little vexed earnestness, for she fancied that Mr. Rhys would not speak because the fruit was hers. His manner changed again, to the deep tenderness which he had shewn so frequently; holding her close and looking down into her face; not answering at once; half enjoying, half soothing, the feeling he had raised.

"Eleanor," he said, "I do not want that fruit."

"Tell me what to do with it."

"If you like to send some of those grapes to sister Balliol, at the other house, I think they would do a great deal of good."

"I will just take out a few for you, and I will send the whole basket over there just as it is. Is there anybody to take it?"

"Do not save any for me."

"Why not?"

"Because I do not want anything more than I have got."

"I suppose I may do about that as I please?" said Eleanor, laughing a little.

"No—you may not. I only want this bunch that I have in my hand, for a poor sick fellow whom I think they will comfort. If you feel as I do, and like to send the rest over to the mission house, I think they will be well and gratefully used."

"But Rowland, why did you not tell me that just at first?" she said a little wistfully.

"Do you feel as I do? Tell me that first."

But as Eleanor was not ready with her answer to this question, of course her own got the go-by. Mr. Rhys laughed at her a little, and then told her she might get the house ready for dinner. Very much Eleanor wished she could rather get the dinner ready for the house; yet somehow she had an instinctive knowledge that it would be no use to ask him; and she had a curious unwillingness to make the request.

"Do you know," she said, looking up in his face, "I do not know how it is, but you are the only person I ever was afraid of, where my natural courage had full play?"

"Does that sentiment possess you at present?"

"Yes—a little."

He laughed again, and said it was wholesome; and went off without seeming in the least dismayed by the intelligence. If Eleanor had ventured that remark as a feeler, she was utterly discomfited. She went about her pretty work of getting the little table ready and acquainting herself with the details of her cupboard arrangements, feeling a little amused at herself, and with many deeper thoughts about Mr. Rhys and the basket of fruit.

They were sitting in the study after dinner, alternately talking and studying Fijian, when Mr. Rhys suddenly asked,

"Of whom have you ever been afraid, Eleanor, where your natural courage did not have full play?"

"Mr. Carlisle."

"How was that?"

"I was in a false position."

"I feared that, at one time," said Mr. Rhys thoughtfully.

"I was a bond woman—under engagements that tied me—I did not dare do as I felt. I understand it all now."

"Do you like to tell me how it happened?"

"I like it very much. I want that you should know just how it was. I was pressed into those engagements without my heart being in them, and indeed very much against my will; but I was dazzled by a vision of worldly glory that made me too weak to resist. Then thoughts of another kind began to rise within me; I saw that worldly glory was not the sufficient thing I had thought it; and as my eyes got clear, I found I had given no love where I had given my promise. Then that consciousness hampered me in every action."

"But you did not break with him—with Mr. Carlisle?"

"Because I was such a bondwoman, as I told you. I did not know what I might do—what was right,—and I wanted to do right then; till I went to Plassy. Aunt Caxton set me free."

Mr. Rhys was silent a little.

"Do you remember coming to visit the old window in the ruins, just before you went to Plassy that time?" he said, looking round at her with a smile.

His wife though she was, Eleanor could not help a warm flush of consciousness coming over her at the recollection.

"I remember," she said demurely. "It was in December."

"What were you afraid of at that time?"

"Mr. Carlisle."

"Did you think it was he whom you heard?'

"No. I thought it was you."

"Then why were you afraid?"

"I had reason enough," said Eleanor, in a low voice. "Mr. Carlisle had taken it into his head to become jealous of you."

She answered with a certain straightforward dignity, but Mr. Rhys had a view of dyed cheeks and a face which shrank from his eye. He beheld it, no doubt, for a little while; at least he was silent; and ended with one or two kisses which to Eleanor's feeling, for she dared not look, spoke him very full of satisfaction. But he never brought up the subject again.

The thoughts raised by the talk about the basket of fruit recurred again a few days later. Eleanor had got into full train of her island life by this time. She was studying hard to learn the language, and beginning to speak words of it with her strange muster of servants. Housekeeping duties were fairly in hand. She had begun to find out, too, what Mr. Rhys had foretold her respecting visitors. They came in groups and singly, at all hours nearly on some days, to see the new house and the new furniture and the new wife of "Misi Risi." Eleanor could not talk to them; she could only be looked at, and answer through an interpreter their questions and requests, and watch with unspeakable interest these strange poor people, and admire with unceasing admiration Mr. Rhys's untiring kindness, patience, and skill, in receiving and entertaining them. They wanted to see and understand every new thing and every new custom. They were polite in their curiosity, but insatiable; and Mr. Rhys would shew and explain and talk, and never seem annoyed or weary; and then, whenever he got a chance, put in his own claim for attention, and tell them of the Gospel. Eleanor always knew from his face and manner, and from theirs, when this sort of talk was going on; and she listened strangely to the unknown words in which her heart went along so blindly. When he thought her not needed, or when he thought her tired, Mr. Rhys would dismiss her to her own room, which he would not have invaded; and Eleanor's reverence for her husband grew with every day, although she would not at the beginning have thought that possible.

At the end of these first few days, Eleanor went one afternoon into Mr. Rhys's study. He was in full tide of work now. The softly swinging door let her in without much noise, and she stood still in the middle of the room, in doubt whether to disturb him or no. He was busy at his writing-table. But Mr. Rhys had good ears, even when he was busy. While she stood there, he looked up at her. She was a pretty vision for a man to see and call wife. She was in one of the white dresses that had stirred Mrs. Esthwaite's admiration; its spotless draperies were in as elegant order as ever they had been for Mrs. Powle's drawing room; the rich banded brown hair was in as graceful order. She stood there very bright, very still, looking at him.

"You have been working a long time, Rowland. You want to stop and rest."

"Come here, and rest me," he answered stretching out his hand.

"Rowland," said Eleanor when she had been standing a minute beside him.
"Mrs. Balliol wants me to cut off my hair."

Mr. Rhys looked up at her, for with one arm round her he was still bending attention upon his work. He glanced up as if in doubt or wonder.

"I have been over to see her," Eleanor repeated, "and she counsels me to cut off my hair; cut it short."

"See you don't!" he said sententiously.

"Why?" said Eleanor.

"It would be the cause of our first and last quarrel."

"Our first," said Eleanor stifling some hidden amusement; "but how could you tell that it would be the last?"

"It would be so very disagreeable!" Mr. Rhys said, with a gravity so dryly comic that Eleanor's gravity was destroyed.

"Mrs. Balliol says I shall find it, my hair, I mean, very much in my way."

"It would be in my way, if it was cut off."

"She says it will take a great deal of precious time. She thinks that your razor would be better applied to my head."

"Than to what other object?"

"Than to its legitimate use and application. She wants me to get you to let your beard grow, and to cut off my hair. 'It's unekal'—as Sam Weller says."

Eleanor was laughing; she could not see Mr. Rhys's face very well; it was somewhat bent over his papers; but the side view was of unprovokable gravity. A gravity however which she had learned to know covered a wealth of amusement or of mischief, as the case might be. She knelt down to bring herself within better speaking and seeing distance.

"Rowland, what sort of people are your coadjutors?"

"They are the Lord's people," he answered.

Eleanor felt somewhat checked; the gravity of this answer was of a different character; but she could not refrain from carrying the matter further; she could not let it rest there.

"Do you mean," she said a little timidly, but persistently, "that you are not willing to speak of them as they are, to me?"

He was quite silent half a minute, and Eleanor grew increasingly sober.
He said then, gently but decidedly,

"There are two persons in the field, of whose faults I am willing to talk to you; yours and my own."

"And of others you think it is wrong, then, to speak even so privately and kindly as we are speaking?" Eleanor was very much chagrined. Mr. Rhys waited a moment, and then said, in the same manner,

"I cannot do it, Eleanor."

He got up a moment after and went out of the room. Eleanor felt almost stunned with surprise and discomfort. This was the second time, in the few days that she had been with him, that he had found her wrong in something. It troubled her strangely; and the sense of how much he was better than she—how much higher his sphere of living than the one she moved in—pressed her heart down almost to the ground. She stood by the writing-table where she had risen to her feet, with her eyes brimful of tears, but so still even to her eyelids that the tears had not overflowed. She supposed Mr. Rhys had gone out. In another moment however she heard his step returning and he entered the study. Eleanor moved instantly to leave it, but he met and stayed her with a look infinitely sweet; turned her about, and made her kneel down with him. And then he poured out a prayer for charity; not merely the kindness that throws a covering over the failings of others, or that holds back the report of what they have been; but the overabounding heavenly love that will send its brightness into the dark places of human society and with its own richness fill the barren spots; and above all, for that love of Jesus the King, that makes all his servants dear, for that spirit of Christ that looks with his own love and forbearance on all that need it. And so, as the speaker prayed, he shewed his own possession of that which he asked for; so revealed the tender and high walk of his own mind and its near familiarity with heavenly things, that Eleanor thought her heart would break. The feeling, how far he stood above her in knowledge and in goodness, while it was a secret and deep joy, yet gave her acute pain such as she never had felt before. She would not weep; it was a dry aching pain, that took part of its strength from the thought of having done or shewn something that he did not like. But Mr. Rhys went on to pray for her alone; and Eleanor was conquered then. Tears came and she cried like a little child, and all the hard pain of pride or of fear was washed away; like the dust from the leaves in a summer shower.

She was so far healed, but she would have run way when they rose from their knees if he had permitted her. He had no such intention. Keeping fast hold of her hand he brought her to a seat by the window, opened it, for the day was now cooling off and the sea-breeze was fresh; and taking the book of their studies he put her into a lesson of Fijian practice; till Eleanor's spirits were thoroughly restored. Then throwing away the book and taking her in his arms he almost kissed the tears back again.

"Eleanor——" he said, when he saw that her eyes were wet, and her colour and her voice were fluttering together.

"What?"

"You must bear the inconvenience of your hair for my sake. Tell sister
Balliol you wear it by my express orders."

Eleanor's look was lovely. She saw that the gentleness of this speech was intended to give her back just that liberty she might think was forbidden. Humbleness and affection danced in her face together.

"And you do not object to white dresses, Rowland?"

"Never—when they are white—" he said with one of his peculiar smiles.

"Rowland," said Eleanor, now completely happy again, "you ought to have those jalousie blinds at these windows. You want them here much more than I do."

"How will you prove that?"

"By putting them here; and then you will confess it."

"Don't you do it!" said he smiling, seeing that Eleanor's eye was in earnest.

"Please let me! Do let me! You want them much more than I do, Rowland."

"Then you will have to let them stand; for they are just where I want them."

"But the shade of them is much more needed here."

"I could have had it. You need not disturb yourself. There is a whole stack of them lying under the shelves in your store-room."

"Why are they lying there?" said Eleanor in great surprise.

"I did not want them. I left them for you to dispose of."

"For me! Then I shall dispose some of them here."

"Not with my leave."

"May I not know why?" said Eleanor putting her hand in his to plead for it.

"I do not want to fare too much better than my brethren," he answered with a smile of infinite pleasantness at her. Eleanor's face shewed a sudden accession of intelligence.

"Then, Rowland, let us send the other jalousies to Mr. Balliol to shade his study—with all my heart; and you put up mine here. I did not think about that before. Will you do it?"

"There are plenty of them without taking yours, child."

"Then, O Rowland, why did you not do it before?"

"I have an objection to using other people's property—even for the benefit of my neighbours"—he said, with the provoking smile in the corners of his mouth.

"But it is yours now."

"Well, I make it over to you, to be offered and presented as it seems good to you, to brother Balliol, or to sister Balliol, for his use and behoof."

"Do you mean that I must do it?"

"If it is your pleasure."

"Then I will speak of it immediately."

"You can have an opportunity to-night. But Eleanor,—you must call her, sister Balliol."

"I can't, Rowland!"

Silence fell between the parties. Mr. Rhys's face was impenetrable. Eleanor glanced at it and again glanced at it; got no help. Finally she laid her hand on his shoulder and spoke a little apprehensively.

"Rowland—are you serious?"

"Perfectly." So he was, outwardly.

"Do you think it matters really whether I call her one thing or another? If it were Mrs. Amos, I should not have the least difficulty. I could call her sister Amos. What does it matter?"

"Why can't you use a Christian form of address with her as well as with me?"

"Do you consider it a matter of principle?"

"Only as it regards the feelings of the individual, in either case."
Mr. Rhys's mouth was looking very comical.

"Would she care, Rowland?"

"I should like to have you try," he said, getting up and arranging his papers to leave. And Eleanor saw he was not going to tell her any more.

"What is the opportunity you spoke of, Rowland?"

"This is our evening for being together—it has hardly been a Class before this, we were so few; but we met to talk and think together, and usually considered some given subject. To-night it is, the 'glory to be revealed.'"

"That is what Mr. Amos and I used to do on board the schooner; and we had that subject too, just after we left Tonga. So we shall be ready."

"We ought to go there to tea; but I have to go over first to Nawaile; it will keep me till after tea-time. Do not wait for me, unless you choose."

Eleanor chose, and told him so. While he was gone she sat at the door of the house watching and thinking; thinking of him especially, and of things that his talk that afternoon had brought up. It was a pleasant hour or two. The sea-breeze fresh from the sea; the waving broad banana leaves; the sweet perfume of flowers, which were rarely profuse and beautiful in their garden; the beautiful southern sky of night, with the stars which Eleanor had learned to know as strangers coming over in the ship, and now loved as the companions of her new home. Stillness, and flapping of leaves, and sweet thoughts; until it was time to be expecting Mr. Rhys back again, and Eleanor made the tea, that he might at least not miss so much refreshment. She knew his step rods off, and long before she could see him; his cup was all ready for him when he stepped in. He drank it, looking at Eleanor over it; would stop for nothing else, and carried her off.

"I had a happy time," he said as they went through the plantations. "I have been to see an old man who lies there dying, or very near it. He has been a Christian two years. He is very glad to see me when I come, and ready to talk; but he will not talk with his neighbours. He says he wants to keep his thoughts fixed on God; and if he listened to these people they would talk to him of village affairs, and turn his mind off."

"Then, if you had a happy time, I suppose he is happy?"

"He is happy. How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace! Think of old Caesar, going to glory from the darkness of Fiji. He said to me to-night—'I am weak, and I am old; my time is come, but I am not afraid to die; through Jesus I feel courageous for death. Jesus is my Chief, and I wish to obey him: if he says I am yet to lie here, I will praise him; and if he says I am to go above to him, I will praise him. I do not wish to eat; his word is my food; I think on it, and lean entirely on Jesus.'—Do you know how good it is to be a missionary, Eleanor?"

They exchanged looks; that was all; they were at the door, and went in. The party there were expecting and waiting for them, and it was more than a common welcome, Eleanor saw, that was given to them. She did not wonder at it. After exchanging warm greetings all round, she sat down; but Mr. Rhys began walking the floor. The rest were silent. There was a somewhat dim light from a lamp in the room; the windows and doors were open; the air, sweet with flowers and fresh from the sea, came in gently; the soft sounds of leaves and insects could be heard through the fall of Mr. Rhys's steps upon the matted floor. The hour had a strange charm to Eleanor.

Silence lasted, until Mr. Rhys interrupted it with kneeling down for prayer. Then followed one of those prayers, in which it always seemed to Eleanor as if somebody had taken her hand, who was leading her where she could almost look in at the gates of that city which Bunyan called the Celestial. Somewhere above earth it took her, and rapt her up as Milton's angel is said to have descended, upon a sunbeam. One came to earth again at the end of the prayer; but not without a remembrance of where one had been.

"Sister Balliol," said Mr. Rhys, "will you put us in mind concerning our subject this evening?"

"It is the glory to be revealed; and I find that it is a glory to be revealed in us," Mrs. Balliol made answer. "Sufferings come first. It is a glory that goes along with sufferings in the present life; but it is so much greater than the sufferings, that no comparison can be made of them. For my part, I do not think the glory would be half so much glory, if it were not for the sufferings going before."

"To suffer with Christ, and for him, that is glory now," said Mr. Rhys; "to have been so honoured will always be part of our joy. If any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but rather let him glorify God on this behalf. Those be tears that Christ's own hand will wipe off; and what glory will that be!"

"The word of God fails to express it," said Mr. Amos, "and calls it 'riches of glory.' Riches of glory, to be poured into vessels prepared to receive it. Surely, being such heirs, none of us has a right to call himself poor? we are heirs of an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and not subject to decadence or failure. We may well be content with our penny earnest in this life, who have such an estate coming in."

"I feel poor very often," said gentle Mrs. Amos; "and I suppose that must be my own fault; for the word says, 'Riches and honour are with me; yea, durable riches, and righteousness.'"

"Those are riches that none but the poor come into possession of," said Mr. Rhys. "The poor in spirit inherit the kingdom, and nobody else. It is our very emptiness, that fits us for receiving those unsearchable riches. But having those, sister Amos, it is no deprivation of this world's good things that would make you feel poor?"

"O no, indeed!" said Mrs. Amos. "I did not mean that sort of poor."

"The rich he will send empty away"—Mr. Rhys went on.

"So in the matter of suffering," said Mr. Balliol taking up the word. "If we are partakers of Christ's sufferings now, we are told to rejoice. For when his glory is revealed, the word is, that we shall be glad also, and with exceeding joy. When his glory is revealed here, a little, now, we are glad; our joy seems to be exceeding, now, brother Rhys. I wonder what it will be when God calls it exceeding joy!"

There was a pause; and then Mrs. Amos, for the sake simply of starting Eleanor, whose voice she knew in it, began softly the song, "Burst, ye emerald gates!" She had her success, for Eleanor with the others took up the words, and carried it—Mrs. Amos thought—where Mr. Rhys's prayer had been. When the song ceased, there was silence; till Mr. Rhys said, "Eleanor!"—It was her turn to speak.

"I do not believe," she said speaking low and slowly,—"that either sufferings, or premises, or duties, will bring the hope of glory into the heart; until Jesus himself brings it there. And if he brings it, it hardly seems to me that sufferings will enhance it—except in so far as they lead to greater knowledge of him or are the immediate fruit of love to him; and then, as Mr. Rhys says, they are honour themselves already. The riches of the glory of this mystery, is Christ in you, the hope of glory."

Mr. Rhys was standing at the back of Eleanor's chair, leaning upon it. He bent his head and whispered to her to tell her story that she had told him. At that whisper, Eleanor would have steadily gone through the fire if necessary; this was not quite as hard; and though not for her own sake caring to do it, she told the story and told it freely and well. She told it so that every head there was bowed. And then there was silence again; till Mr. Rhys began, or rather went on with what she had been saying; in a voice that seemed to come from every heart.

"'Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.'

"Friends, we have the present honour, of being Christ's ambassadors. Do we know what honour that is? 'Whosoever shall receive this child in my name, receiveth me; and whosoever shall receive me, receiveth him that sent me.' That is honour under which we may tremble!"—And standing there at the back of Eleanor's chair, Mr. Rhys began to talk; on the joy of carrying Christ's message, the honour of being his servants and co-workers, and the gladness of bringing the water of life to lips dry and failing in death. He told the instance of that evening which he had told to Eleanor; and leaving his station behind her, he walked up and down again, speaking as she had sometimes heard him speak, till every head was raised and turned, and every eye followed him. With fire and tears, speaking of the work to be done and the joy of doing it, and the need of more to do it; and of the carelessness people have of that glory which will make men shine as the stars for ever and ever.

"Ay, we shall know then, brother Balliol, when the great supper is served, and Christ shall gird himself, and make his faithful servants sit down to meat, and he shall come forth and serve them—we shall know then, if we are there, what glory means! And we shall know what it means to have no want unsatisfied and no joy left out!—when the Lamb that is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them to living fountains of waters."

Mr. Balliol answered—

"If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servants be: if any man serve me, him will my Father honour."

Mr. Rhys went on—"Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind; neither as being lords over God's heritage, but being ensamples to the flock. And when the chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away."

They knelt together again, and then separated; and the tropical moon lighted home the two who did not belong to Mrs. Balliol's household.

THE END.