greatly the advantage of him. Indeed Mr. Rhys
had payment of more sorts than one; for cheeks were rosy as the fingers
were white which she was drying, as she had risen and stood before him.
She looked on then with great edification, to see his fingers
deliberately dipped in the same bowl and dried on the same napkin; for
very well Eleanor knew they would have done it for no mortal beside
her. And then she was carried off to look at the walls of her house.

CHAPTER XIX.

IN THE HOUSE.

"Thou hast found ....
Thy cocoas and bananas, palms and yams,
And homestall thatched with leaves."

The walls of the house were, to an Englishwoman, a curiosity. They were
made of reeds; three layers or thicknesses of them being placed
different ways, and bound and laced together with sinnet; the strong
braid made of the fibre of the cocoanut-husk. It was this braid, woven
in and out, which produced the pretty mosaic effect Eleanor had
observed upon the outside. Mr. Rhys took her to a doorway, where she
could examine from within and from without this novel construction; and
explained minutely how it was managed.

"This looks like a foreign land," said Eleanor. "You had described it,
and I thought I had imagined it; but sight and feeling are quite a
different matter."

"I did not describe it to you?"

"No--O no; you described it to aunt Caxton."

He drew her back a step or two and laid her hand upon the post of the
door.

"What is this?" said Eleanor.

"That is a piece of the stem of the palm-fern."

"And these are its natural mouldings and markings! It is like elegant
carved work! It is natural, is it not?" she said suddenly.

"Certainly. The natives do execute very marvellous carving in wood,
with tools that would drive a workman at home to despair; but I have
not learned the art. Come here--the pillars that hold up the roof of
your house are of the same wood."

A double row of pillars through the whole length of the house gave it
stability; they were stems of the same palm fern, and as they had been
chosen and placed with a careful eye to size and position, the effect
of them was not at all inelegant. The building itself was of generous
length and width; and with a room cut off at each end, as the fashion
was, the centre apartment was left of really noble proportions; broad,
roomy, and lofty; with its palm columns springing up to its high roof
of thatch. Standing beside one of them, Eleanor looked up an