"We must have an answer before we send any other letters. Supposing she does not oppose, or that her opposition is set aside, I come back to my question. When will you go?"
Eleanor looked up doubtfully again. "I don't know, ma'am—I suppose opportunities of going only occur now and then."
"That is all—with long intervals sometimes. Opportunities for your going would come only rarely. You must think about it, Eleanor; for we must know what we are to tell Mr. Rhys."
Eleanor was silent; her colour went and came.
"You must think about it, my dear. If you write to Mr. Rhys to-day and send it, we may get an answer from him possibly in twenty months—possibly in twenty-four months. Then if you wait four or five months for an opportunity to make the voyage, and have a reasonably good passage, you may see your friend in three years from now. But it might well happen that letters might be delayed, and that you might wait much longer than four or five months for a ship and company in which you could sail; so that the three years might be nearer four."
"I have thought of all that, aunt Caxton," Eleanor said, while the colour which had been varying in her cheeks fixed itself in two deep crimson spots.
Mrs. Caxton was now silent on her part, slowly finishing her coffee and putting the cups together on the tray. She left it for her niece to speak next.
"I have thought of all that, aunt Caxton," Eleanor repeated after a little while,—"and—"
"Well my love?"
"Aunt Caxton," said the girl, looking up now while her cheeks and brow were all one crimson flush—"is it unmaidenly in me—would it be—to go so, without being asked?"