"You say this was all a wilderness a few years ago—why should you despair of what you call the 'black islands?'"
"O ho!" said Mr. Esthwaite,—"we are there, are we? By a hop, skip, and jump—leaving the argument. That's like a woman."
"Are you sure?" said Eleanor.
"Like all the women I ever saw. Not one of them can stick to the point."
"Then I will return to mine," said Eleanor laughing—"or rather bring you up to it. I referred—and meant to refer you—to another sort of gardening, in which the labourer receives wages and gathers fruit; but the beauty of it is, that his wages go with him—he does not leave them behind—and the fruit is unto life eternal."
"That's fair," said Mr. Esthwaite. "See here—you don't preach, do you?"
"I will not, to you," said Eleanor. "Mr. Esthwaite, I will look at no more flowers I believe, this morning, since you leave the time of our stay to me."
Mr. Esthwaite behaved himself, and though a speech was on his tongue he was silent, and attended Eleanor home in an unexceptionable manner. Mrs. Esthwaite was in a dissatisfied mood of mind.
"I hope it will be a great while before you find a good chance to go to
Fiji!" she said.
"Do not wish that," said Eleanor: "for in that case I may have to take a chance that is not good."