Mrs. Caxton read them.

"This gift would be very precious to me, my child," she said,
tightening the pressure of the arms which still were wrapped round
Eleanor,--"if I were not obliged so soon to make it over to somebody
else. But I will not be selfish. It is unspeakably precious to me now.
It gives me the right to take care of you. I asked your mother for it.
I am greatly obliged to her. Now what are you going to do to-day?"

"Write--to Fiji," said Eleanor slowly and without moving.

"Right; and so will I. And do not you be overmuch concerned about
Julia. There is another verse of that hymn, which I often think of--

"'I love to see thee bring to nought,
The plans of wily men;
When simple hearts outwit the wise,
O thou art loveliest then!'"

CHAPTER XII.

IN WAITING.

"If Proteus like your journey, when you come,
No matter who's displeas'd when you are gone;
I fear me he will scarce be pleas'd withal."

The way was clear, and Eleanor wrote to Fiji as she had said. She could
not however get rid of her surprise that her mother had permitted the
tenor of these letters to be what it was. What had moved Mrs. Powle, so
to act against all her likings and habits of action? How came she to
allow her daughter to go to the South Seas and be a missionary?

Several things which Eleanor knew nothing of, and which so affected the
drift of Mrs. Powle's current of life that she was only, according to
custom, sailing with it and not struggling against it. When people seem
to act unlike themselves, it is either that you do not know themselves,
or do not know some other things which they know. So in this case. For
one thing, to name the greatest first, Mr. Carlisle was unmistakeably
turning his attention to another lady, a new star in the world of
society; an earl's daughter and an heiress. Whether heart-whole or not,
which was best known to himself, Mr. Carlisle was prosecuting his
addresses in this new quarter with undoubted zeal and determination. It
was not the time for Eleanor now to come home! Let her do anything
else,--was the dictate of pride. _Now_ to come home, or even not to
come home, remaining Eleanor Powle, was to confess in the world's eye a
lamentably lost game; to take place as a rejected or vainly ambitious
girl; the _would-have-been_ lady of Rythdale. Anything but that!
Eleanor might almost better die at once. She would not only have ruined
her own prospects, but would greatly injur