"I suppose you will tell me now," said Mr. Amos with a smile of some humour, "that no upholsterer's hangings can rival that. I give up—as the schoolboys say. Yet we do lose some things. What do you say to a land without churches?"
"O it is not," said Eleanor. "Chapels are rising everywhere—in every village, on some islands; and very neat ones."
"I am afraid," said Mr. Amos with his former look of quiet humour, "you would not be of the mind of a lady I heard rejoicing once over the celebration of the church service at Oxford. She remarked, that it was a subject of joyful thought and remembrance, to know that praise so near perfection was offered somewhere on the earth. There was the music, you know, and the beautiful building in which we heard it, and all the accessories. You will have nothing like that in Fiji."
"She must have forgotten those words," said Eleanor—"'Where is the house that ye build unto me, and where is the place of my rest? … to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word.' You will find that in Fiji."
"Ah," said Mr. Amos,—"I see. My friend will have a safe wife in you. Do you know, when I first saw you I stood in doubt. I thought you looked like—Well, never mind! It's all right."
"Right!" said Captain Fox coming up behind them. "I am glad somebody thinks so. Right!—lying broiling here all day, and sleeping all night as if we were in port and had nothing to do—when we're a long way from that. Drove you down to-day, didn't it?" said he turning to Eleanor.
"It was so hot; I could not get a bit of permanent shade anywhere. I went below for a little while."
"And yet it's all right!" said the captain. "I am afraid you are not in a hurry to get to the end of the voyage."
Mr. Amos smiled and Eleanor blushed. The truth was, she never let herself think of the end of the voyage. The thought would come—the image standing there would start up—but she always put it aside and kept to the present; and that was one reason certainly why Eleanor's mind was so quiet and free and why the enjoyable and useful things of the hour were not let slip and wasted. So her spirits maintained their healthy tone; no doubt spurred to livelier action by the abiding consciousness of that spot of brightness in the future towards which she would not allow herself to look in bewildering imaginations.
Meanwhile the calm came to an end, as all things will; the beneficent trade wind took charge of the vessel again, and they sped on, south, south; till the sky over Eleanor's head was a new one from that all her life had known, and the bright stars at night looked at her as strangers. For study them as she would, she could not but feel theirs were new faces. The captain one day shewed her St. Helena in the distance; then the Cape of Good Hope was neared—and rounded—and in the Indian Ocean the travellers ploughed their way eastward. The island of St. Paul was passed; and still the ship sailed on and on to the east.