immediately. It creates a feeling of instant excitement, a
necessity for instant doing, a consciousness that there was in those
few weeks ample work both for the hands and thoughts,--work almost
more than ample. The dear little wife, who for the last two years
had been so listless, felt herself flurried.

"Harry," she said to her husband, "how shall we ever be ready?" And
her pretty face was lighted up with unusual brightness at the happy
thought of so much haste with such an object. "And baby's things
too," she said, as she thought of all the various little articles of
dress that would be needed. A journey from San Jose to Southampton
cannot in truth be made as easily as one from London to Liverpool.
Let us think of a month to be passed without any aid from the
washerwoman, and the greatest part of that month amidst the
sweltering heats of the West Indian tropics!

In the first month of her hurry and flurry Mrs. Arkwright was a
happy woman. She would see her mother again and her sisters. It
was now four years since she had left them on the quay at
Southampton, while all their hearts were broken at the parting. She
was a young bride then, going forth with her new lord to meet the
stern world. He had then been home to look for a wife, and he had
found what he looked for in the younger sister of his partner. For
he, Henry Arkwright, and his wife's brother, Abel Ring, had
established themselves together in San Jose. And now, she thought,
how there would be another meeting on those quays at which there
should be no broken hearts; at which there should be love without
sorrow, and kisses, sweet with the sweetness of welcome, not bitter
with the bitterness of parting. And people told her,--the few
neighbours around her,--how happy, how fortunate she was to get home