plenty of it, dry toast and potato. Missionary hardships! On the
grass between me and the beach--a distance of some seventy yards--lie
the boys' canvas beds and blankets and rugs, having a good airing.
The schooner lies at anchor beyond; and, three or four miles beyond
the schooner, lies Eangitoto, the great natural breakwater to the
harbour. With my Dollond's opera-glass that you gave me, I can see
the master and mate at their work refitting. Everything is under my
eye. Our long boat and whale boat (so-called from their shapes) lie
on the beach, covered with old sails to protect them from the sun.
The lads are washing clothes, or scrubbing their rooms, and all the
rooms--kitchen, hall, store-room, and school-room. There is a good
south-western breeze stirring--our cold wind; but it is shut off
here, and scarcely reaches us, and the sun has great power.

'I have the jolliest little fellows this time--about seven of them--
fellows scarcely too big to take on my knee, and talk to about God,
and Heaven, and Jesus Christ; and I feel almost as if I had a kind of
instinct of love towards them, as they look up wonderingly with their
deep deep eyes, and smooth and glossy skins, and warm soft cheeks,
and ask their simple questions. I wish you could have seen the
twenty Banks Islanders as I told them that most excellent of all
tales--the story of Joseph. How their eyes glistened! and they
pushed out their heads to hear the sequel of his making himself known
to his brethren, and asking once more about "the old man of whom ye
spake, is he yet alive?"

'I can never read it with a steady voice, nor tell it either.'

Sir John had thus replied to the tirade against English conventional
luxury:--