done in the
house she had seen that same watchful care for her pleasure and
comfort. There never was a house that seemed to be so love's work; Mr.
Rhys's own hand had most manifestly been everywhere; and the furniture
that Mrs. Caxton had sent he had placed. But Mrs. Caxton had not sent
all. Eleanor's eye rested on a dressing-table that certainly never came
from England. It was pretty enough; it was very pretty, even to her
notions; yet it had cost nothing, and was as nearly as possible made of
nothing. Yes, for she looked; the frame was only some native reeds or
canes and a bit of board; the rest was white muslin drapery, which
would pack away in a very few square inches of room, but now hung in
pretty folds around the glass and covered the frame. Eleanor just
looked and wondered; no more; for the hour was up, and she went to her
window and raised the jalousies again. She was more quiet now, she
thought; but her heart throbbed with the thought of Mr. Rhys and his
return.

She looked over the beautiful wild country, watching for him. The light
was fair on the blue hills; the sea-breeze fluttered the leaves of the
cocoanut trees and waved the long thick leaves of the banana. She heard
no other sound near or far, till the quick swift tread she was
listening for came to her ear. Nobody was to be seen; but the step was
not to be mistaken. Eleanor got to the front door and had it open just
in time to see him come.

They stood then together in the doorway, for the view was fair on the
river side too. The opposite shore was beautiful, and the houses of the
heathen village had a great interest for Eleanor, aside from their
effect as part of the landscape; but her shyness was upon her again,
and she had a thorough consciousness that Mr. Rhys did not see how the
light fell on either shore. At last he put his arm round her and drew
her up to his side, saying,

"And so you did not get my letters in Sydney.--Poor little dove!"

It struck Eleanor with a curious pleasure, these words. They would have
been true, she knew, in the lips of no other mortal, as also certainly
to no other mortal would it have occurred to use them. She was not the
sort of person by any means to whom such an appellation would generally
be given. To be sure her temper was of the finest, but then also it had
a body to it. Yet here she knew it was true; and he knew; it was spoken
not by any arrogance, but by a purely frank and natural understanding
of their