"I know you; I know you! And you shall know me when we meet again."
Then she disappeared as suddenly as she had come. But her face and figure, her smile and twinkling eyes, and her good-natured voice remained long with me as a pleasant memory. Before I had been a very long time in New Zealand, I saw her again; but this next time her presence was more than a fleeting fancy.
At ten o'clock on Tuesday morning we sighted New Zealand. At eight o'clock that night we arrived at the port of Wellington. It was in the ordinary time of the steamer that we should leave at four o'clock the next morning on the voyage across Cook's Strait to Littleton, my destination—175 miles distant.
Instead, however, of our getting away Wednesday morning at four o'clock, at that hour a furious gale was coming up the strait. So terrific was its power that the captain could not entertain the thought of going out of port; so we remained over twenty-six hours, and left Wellington at six o'clock on Thursday morning.
On Friday morning, about six o'clock, we reached Port Littleton, from which place I had learned that a train started for Christchurch, on the way to Rangiora, an hour later. It was my intention to go on shore with my luggage and take a seat in this train before seven o'clock.
But, as I was about to set foot upon the gangway, I felt a sudden prompting, as distinct as if it were a voice, speaking to me:
"Don't go ashore now. You must wait for a time."
I learned that another train would leave during the morning, and then I went back into the cabin with my luggage and remained nearly an hour. While waiting I seemed to hear a voice as of someone speaking behind me:
"Now is your time to go ashore."
I took all my luggage on my shoulders and in my hands, and walked across the deck and gangway, and was just setting foot on the quay, when a man rushed up to me and said: