tropical beauty under the clear, bracing, delicious warm weather of
Australia. Fern trees springing up to the dimensions of trees indeed,
with the very fern foliage she was accustomed to in low herbaceous
growth at home; only magnified superbly. There were elegant palms, too,
with other evergreens, and magnificent creepers; and floating out and
in among them in great numbers were gay red-crested cockatoos and other
tropical birds. The character of the scenery was exquisite. Eleanor saw
one or two of the fair lake-like lagoons of that district, eat of the
fish from them; for they made a kind of gypsey expedition, camping out
and providing for themselves fascinatingly; and finally returned in the
steamer from Wollongong to Sydney. Her friends would have taken her to
see the gold diggings if it had been possible. But Eleanor saw it all,
all they could shew her, with half a heart. She had learned long ago to
conceal what she felt.

"I think she wants to get away," said Mrs. Esthwaite one night, half
vexed, wholly sorry.

"That's what it is to be in love!" said her husband. "You won't keep
her in Sydney. Do you notice she has given up smiling?"

"No!" said his wife indignantly; "I notice no such thing. She is as
ready to smile as anybody I ever saw."--And I wish I had as good
reason! was the mental conclusion; for Eleanor and she had had many an
evening talk by that time, and many a hymn had been listened to.

"All very well," said Mr. Esthwaite; "but she don't smile as she did at
first. Don't you remember?--that full smile she used to give once in a
while, with a little world of mischief in the corners? I would like to
see it the next time!--"

"I declare," said Mrs. Esthwaite, "I think you take quite an
impertinent interest in people's concerns. She wouldn't let you see it,
besides."

At which Mr. Esthwaite laughed.

So near people came to it; and Eleanor covered up her troublesome
thoughts within her own heart, and gave Mr. Esthwaite the benefit of
that impenetrable coolness and sweetness of manner which a good while
ago had used to bewitch London circles. In the effort to hide her real
thoughts and feelings she did not quite accommodate it to the different
latitude of New South Wales; and Mr. Esthwaite was a good deal struck
and somewhat bewildered.

"You have mistaken your calling," he said one evening, standing before
Eleanor and considering her.

"Do you think so?"

"There! Yes, I do. I think you were b