Neither were Eleanor's feelings quite unmixed at this moment. She expected to see Mr. and Mrs. Amos again; with the rest her intercourse was finished; and it had been of that character which leaves longing and tender memories behind. She felt all that now. And she felt much more. With the end of her voyage in the "Diana" came, at least for the present, an end to her inward tranquillity. Now there were letters awaiting her; letters for which she had wished nervously so long; now she was near Fiji and her new life; now she dared to realize, she could not help it, what all the voyage she had refused to think of, as still in a hazy distance of the future. Here it was, nigh at hand, looming up through the haze, taking distinctness and proportions; and Eleanor's heart was in a state of agitation to which that sound little member was very little accustomed. However, the outward effect of all this was to give her manner even an unwonted degree of cool quietness; and Mr. Esthwaite was in a state between daunted and admiring. Both of them kept silence for a little while after leaving the ship, while the wherry pulled along in the beautiful bay, passing among a crowd of vessels of all sorts and descriptions, moving and still. The scene was lively, picturesque, pleasant, in the highest degree.
"How does my cousin like us on a first view?"
"It is a beautiful scene!" said Eleanor. "What a great variety of vessels are here!"
"And isn't this just the finest harbour in the world?"
"I have heard a great deal of Port Philip," said Eleanor smiling. "I understand there is a second Bay of Naples there."
"I don't care for the Bay of Naples! We have sunk all that. We are in a new world. Wait till you see what I will shew you to-morrow. Now look at that wooded point, with the white houses spotting it; those are fine seats; beautiful view and all that; and at Sydney you can have everything you want, almost at command."
"You know," said Eleanor, "that is not absolutely a new experience to me. In England, we have not far to seek."
"O you say so! Much you know about it. You have been in such a nest of a place as my cousin Caxton spreads her wings over. I never was in a nest, till I made one for myself. How is my good cousin?"
The talk ran upon home things now until they reached the town and landed at a fine stone quay. Then to the Custom House, where business was easily despatched; then Mr. Esthwaite put Eleanor into a cab and they drove away through the streets for his house in the higher part of the city. Eleanor's eyes were full of business. How strange it was! So far away from home, and so long living on the sea, now on landing to be greeted by such a multitude of familiar sounds and sights. The very cab she was driving in; the omnibuses and carts they passed; the English-cut faces; the same street cries; the same trades revealing themselves, as she had been accustomed to in London. But now and then there came a difference of Australasia. There would be a dray drawn by three or four pair of bullocks; London streets never saw that turn-out; and then Eleanor would start at seeing a little group of the natives of the country, dressed in English leavings of costume. Those made her feel where she was; otherwise the streets and houses and shops had very much of a home air. Except indeed when a curious old edifice built of logs peeped in among white stone fronts and handsome shop windows; the relics, Mr. Esthwaite told her, of that not so very far distant time when the town first began to grow up, and the "bush" covered almost all the ground now occupied by it. Eleanor was well pleased to be so busied in looking out that she had little leisure for talking; and Mr. Esthwaite sat by and smiled in satisfaction. But this blessed immunity could not last. The cab stopped before a house in George street.
"Has she come?" exclaimed a voice as the door opened; and a head full of curls put itself out into the hall;—"have you brought her? Oh how delightful! How glad I am!—" and the owner of the curls came near to be introduced, hardly waiting for the introduction, and to give Eleanor the most gleeful sort of a welcome.