The Old Helmet. Volume II

"What, mamma? I have not been there."

"No, but of course you know. What do you live in? houses or tents?"

"I do not know which you would call them; they are not stone or wood. There is a skeleton frame of posts to uphold the building; but the walls are made of different thicknesses of reeds, laid different ways and laced together with sinnet."

"What's sinnet?"

"A strong braid made of the fibre of the cocoa-nut – of the husk of the cocoanut. It is made of more and less size and strength, and is used instead of iron to fasten a great many sorts of things; carpentry and boat building among them."

"Goodness! what a place. Well go on with your house."

"That is all," said Eleanor smiling; "except that it is thatched with palm leaves, or grass, or cane leaves. Sometimes the walls are covered with grass; and the braid work done in patterns, so as to have a very artistic effect."

"And what is inside?"

"Not much beside the people."

"Well, tell me what, for instance. There is something, I suppose. The walls are not bare?"

"Not quite. There are apt to be mats, to sit and lie on; – and pots for cooking, and baskets and a chest perhaps, and a great mosquito curtain."

"Are you going to live in a house like that, Eleanor?"

Mrs. Powle's face expressed distress. Eleanor laughed and declared she did not know.

"It will have some chairs for her to sit upon," said Mrs. Caxton; "and I shall send some china cups, that she may not have to drink out of a cocoa-nut shell."

"But I should like that very well," said Eleanor; "and I certainly think a Fijian wooden dish, spread with green leaves, is as nice a vessel for food as can be."

Mrs. Powle rose up and began to arrange her shawl, with an air which said, "I do not understand it!"

"Mamma, what are you about?"

"Eleanor, you make me very uncomfortable."

"Do I? Why should I, mamma?"

"It is no use talking." Then suddenly facing round on Eleanor she said,

"What are you going to do for servants in that dreadful place?"

"Mr. Rhys says he has a most faithful servant – who is much attached to him, and does as well as he can desire."

"One of those native savages?"

"He was; he is a Christian now, and a good one."

Mrs. Powle looked as if she did not know how to believe her daughter.

"Aren't you afraid of what you are about, Eleanor – to venture among those creatures? and to take all that voyage first, alone? Are you not afraid?"

There was that in the very simpleness and quietness of Eleanor's answer that put her negative beyond a question. Mrs. Powle sat down again for very bewilderment.

"Why are you not afraid?" she said. "You never were afraid of little things, I know; but those houses – Are there no thieves among those heathen?"

"A good many."

"What is to keep them out of your house? Anybody could cut through a reed wall with a knife – and make no noise about it. Where is your security?"

Alas, in the one face there was such ignorance, in the other such sorrowful consciousness of that ignorance, that the two faces at first looked mutely into each other across the gulf between them.

"Mamma," said Eleanor, "why will you not understand me? Do you not know, – the Eternal God is our refuge!"

The still, grand expression of faith Mrs. Powle could not receive; but the speaking of Eleanor's eyes she did. She turned from them.

"Good morning, sister Caxton," she said. "I will go. I cannot bear it any longer to-day."

"You will come to-morrow, sister Powle?"

"Yes. O yes. I'll be here to-morrow. I will get my feelings quieted by that time. Good bye, Eleanor."

"Mamma," said the girl trembling, "when will you bring Julia?"

"Now Eleanor, don't let us talk about anything more that is disagreeable. I do not want to say anything about Julia. You have taken your way – and I do not mean to unsettle you in it; but Julia is in another line, and I cannot have you interfere with her. I am very sorry it is so, – but it is not my doing. I cannot help it. I do not want to give you pain."

Mrs. Powle departed. Eleanor came back from attending her to the door, stopped in the middle of the room, and her cheeks grew white as she spoke.

"I shall never see her again!"

"My love," said Mrs. Caxton pityingly, – "I hardly know how to believe it possible."

"I knew it all along," said Eleanor. She sat down and covered her face.

Mrs. Caxton sighed.

"It is as true now as it was in the old time," she said, – "'He that will live godly in Christ Jesus, shall suffer persecution.' So surely as we walk like Christ, so surely the world will call us odd and strange and fanatical, and treat us accordingly."

Eleanor's head was bent low.

"And Jesus is our only refuge – and our sufficient consolation."

"O yes! – but – "

"And he can make our silent witness-bearing bring fruits for his glory, and for our dear ones' good, as much as years of talking to them, Eleanor."

"You are good comfort, aunt Caxton," said the girl putting her arms around her and straining her close; – "but – this is something I cannot help just now – "

It was a natural sorrow not to be struggled with successfully; and Eleanor took it to her own room. So did Mrs. Caxton take it to hers. But the struggle was ended then and there. No trace of it remained the next day. Eleanor met her mother most cheerfully, and contrived admirably to keep her from the gulf of discussion into which she had been continually plunging at her first visit. With so much of grace and skill, and of that poise of her own mind which left her free to extend help to another's vacillations and uncertainties, Eleanor guided the conversation and bore herself generally that day, that Mrs. Powle's sighing commentary as she went away, was, "Ah, Eleanor! – you might have been a duchess!"