kind reproof. "We may stay here," she went on, after this, "for a fortnight, we may stay here for a month, we may stay here longer, because the people will be building up Golden Edge; but when it is ready, are you coming?"

"I shall come many times whilst it is being built," said Ernest, still trying to put her off. He did not want her to know too much, all in one day.

"It will seem like

But when shall we

"Yes, that will be nice," said Leonora. -like-seeing dear mamma and papa! go to Blue Mountain View, and go back to live at Golden Edge?" "Perhaps," said Ernest, seeing that the truth must come, "I may think it better for you to live somewhere else. How would that be?"

"To live here?"

"No. I could not trouble Mr Fonseca with my little Lee and Bee. They have to be turned into clever girls, and to learn what other girls learn, so that they may grow at last into clever ladies."

"Girls have governesses to do that."

"Yes; some of them. But some girls are sent to school." "No," said Leonora, shaking her head. "No. Mamma said there was no school near Golden Edge. And there isn't. Mamma knew."

66

But she learnt to play pretty tunes, and to sing pretty songs, and where was it?" asked Ernest. "Where did she have her drawing-master, and her dancing-master, and learn French and German, and the rest?"

"In England!” cried Leonora, with a quick look in her eyes. "Yes. Where I had to go. You know I was away from Jamaica for four years. At Mill Hill. And Mr Fonseca and I have been talking about it;"-Ernest was speaking very gently, to make it seem less of a blow and a surprise; but Leonora seemed, at last, to know all he was going to say, so that she could have said it for him, and her little heart was beating rapidly ;" and I can only make it go one way."

"Bee!" cried Leonora. "Hark! Pay attention!"

"You must be nice sisters, you know; just as you were nice daughters; and just as you had a nice dear mamma. I must not let you grow different to what she meant you to be." "Bee!" Leonora was crying still. "Hark! Listen!"

"And so I have written to England, and to Little Dene, and the mail goes out to-morrow, and in about seven weeks' time I shall have an answer, and we shall know."

66

"Oh, Bee! oh, Bee!" cried Leonora, as though nothing would hold her, and her heart would break; we are to go to Little Dene, to be with Aunt Carly!"

CHAPTER IV.

ACROSS THE SEA.

WELL, but to go to England might be nice after all. At any rate, to make preparations for going to England was nice, undoubtedly. What it meant, at the beginning, was to know very much more about Jamaica than Leonora and Beatrice Casserly had ever known before; for what it meant was, that after staying some weeks at the High Steep, they were taken straight away to stop at a beautiful hotel at Kingston till the English mail was ready to sail out of the harbour; and to be at Kingston, which was the London of Jamaica, and the Liverpool of Jamaica, both rolled into one, was just what the little girls had been promised ever since they could remember being promised anything at all; and every step they were taken was a delight to them, and every sight they saw brought new surprise.

Shops! They seemed to be always going into shops (only they were called stores), and only coming out of them to go into more. Their brother was not always with them; for the mistress of the hotel-which was also called a boarding-house -took charge of Lee and Bee; and there were many people in the town who had known their mother and father, and who came to see them every day, and took them away on little short visits; and so, between them all, Ernest knew that what was wanted for his little sisters' voyage could be got better if he did not interfere; and he left the children in the town whilst he went backwards and forwards to his plantation and to Golden Edge, where the ruin brought about by the hurricane was not yet all repaired, and his presence was still much required.

"I would like some presents for their aunt at Little Dene, too," he said to the ladies. "When they unpack, they must not have quite empty hands."

This seemed to be the nicest shop-visiting to do of any; it was so splendid to go down Harbour Street, and into De Cordova and Gall's, with full permission to look at all their "native products" (which had seemed such long words to Lee and Bee) and curiosities.

"Ah, these dear little humming-birds!" Beatrice cried. "These dear little darling little stuffed things, just as I have seen them alive, with their dear little nests, and their tiny little wings spread, ready to fly !"

"And these lace-bark fans!" said Leonora. "Do look! And this seed-work, and this shell work, and these flowers made of fish-scales, and these made of the dagger-plant, and these d'oy-d'oy-what is its?-made of ferns! I wonder which we are going to buy!"

Perhaps this, perhaps that, perhaps none. The children were quite unconcerned, and were soon busily engaged reading labels, and reading them very badly, since they had only had a governess now and then, and when their mamma had tried to teach them herself, they had always tried to get away. Preserved Ginger, these labels were, Guava Jelly, Black Crab Paste, Marmalade Dulce, Jamaica Relish, Jamaica Pepper Pot, Preserved Calapee, Cocoa Plums, Pine Apples, Turtle Eggs, Turtle Tablets, Green Turtle Fat. Altogether they seemed charming; and the children would have proceeded to have read a great many more, but that their friends had made their purchases, without asking their opinion (it was not necessary, you see !), and were calling them to take hold of their hands and go elsewhere.

It was past the Custom House, and the wharfs, and other stores and offices, where they could see notices about pitch-pine lumber, white pine lumber, and Cypress shingles, and Wallaba shingles, and Boston chips; and where, because Lee and Bee were Jamaicans, and were used to it, they knew these meant different sorts and lengths of wood. It was past where they could see barrels of alewives (a fish), packages of arrowroot, pimento, nutmegs, indigo, cinnamon; a turtle factory (for preserving turtles, though not for making them, because they are born, in the

mize ad Like Lae ni kri Lae: nd the cert, by a rating the headings of Fszes-że Jamaica Cresle, e Jamaica Wire, the once in the Colonial Standard, the News Late-d more: for they made happiness and interest out of everything as has been said, everybody was very kind (they sometimes wondered why, but everybody knew), and to pass from one thing was only to size upon the next, and to find it just as pleasant as what had trone before,

They had excursions of all kinds, of course.

"I shall take you to the Up Park Camp," said one lady.

That was glorious. She took them the afternoon the regimental band played, when the black soldiers were there, in their white turbans, and their uniform like Algerians or Zouaves.

"I shall take you to the Creole Saw Mills," said another lady. That was glorious, too. For the mills were worked by steam; and the children saw the wood (or lumber) sliced into planks and shingles, with only the creoles to look after the machinery, and without any saws to "hish" backwards and forwards at all.

"I shall take you to where there used to be slave markets," said a third lady.

There was some pity mixed with the glory of that. For the lady showed the children where there had been the Vendue Mart (which their French told them, although they knew so little, came from vendu, sold), the railed-off place or platform where negroes and negresses stood whilst planters felt whether they were weak or strong, and decided whether they were worth as little as £20, or as much as £60 or £70; and Lee and Bee were grieved to think that men and women and children had ever been bought and sold in their own Jamaica ; though when the lady told them that since 1838 every black hand" in the West India Islands (or in any British possession) had been free, they were glad again, becoming as delighted as they had been all through.

In the same way, they were taken to the Palisadoes, a piece of ground planted with senna. They were taken to the Mico Free Schools, for little black and brown children whose parents could not afford to pay. They were taken

But there came an end to the places where they were taken. There came a time when Ernest seemed kinder than ever; when he was very hurried; going from the hotel to the Mail Company's Wharf and back again, and speaking to some American ladies on their way to England, and going to the wharf again, and bringing back the stewardess, and seeing to luggage, and asking about more luggage, and sending the hotel negroes to this place, and sending them to others, all at once, so it seemed, and yet lasting all day long. There came a time when he drew his sisters to him, and spoke very seriously.