"Why, mamma?"
"Why? With your advantages and talents and education. Mr.—no matter who, but who used to be a good judge, said that your talents would give anybody else's talents enough to do;—and that you should throw them away upon a class of half-naked children at the antipodes!"——
"There will be somebody else to take the benefit of them first," Mrs. Caxton said very composedly. "I rather think Mr. Rhys will see to it that they are not wasted."
"Mamma, I think you do not understand this matter," Eleanor said gently. "Whoever made that speech flattered me; but I wish my talents were ten times so much as they are, that I might give them to this work."
"To this gentleman, you mean!" Mrs. Powle said tartly.
A light came into Eleanor's eyes; she was silent a minute and then with the colour rising all over her face she said, "He is abundantly worthy of all and much more than I am."
"Well I do not understand this matter, as you said," Mrs. Powle answered in some discomfiture. "Tell me of something I do understand. What society will you have where you are going, Eleanor?"
"I shall be too busy to have much time for society, mamma," Eleanor answered, good-humouredly.
"No such thing—you will want it all the more. Sister Caxton, is it not so?"
"People do not go out there without consenting to forego many things," Mrs. Caxton answered; "but there is One who has promised to be with his servants when they are about his work; and I never heard that any one who had that society, pined greatly for want of other."