thus early in her life. They had been out some ten,--some twenty
years, and still the day of their return was distant. And then she
pressed her living baby to her breast, and wiped away a tear as she
thought of the other darling whom she would leave beneath that
distant sod.

And then came the question as to the route home. San Jose stands in
the middle of the high plain of Costa Rica, half way between the
Pacific and the Atlantic. The journey thence down to the Pacific
is, by comparison, easy. There is a road, and the mules on which
the travellers must ride go steadily and easily down to Punta
Arenas, the port on that ocean. There are inns, too, on the way,--
places of public entertainment at which refreshment may be obtained,
and beds, or fair substitutes for beds. But then by this route the
traveller must take a long additional sea voyage. He must convey
himself and his weary baggage down to that wretched place on the
Pacific, there wait for a steamer to take him to Panama, cross the
isthmus, and reship himself in the other waters for his long journey
home. That terrible unshipping and reshipping is a sore burden to
the unaccustomed traveller. When it is absolutely necessary,--then
indeed it is done without much thought; but in the case of the
Arkwrights it was not absolutely necessary. And there was another
reason which turned Mrs. Arkwright's heart against that journey by
Punt' Arenas. The place is unhealthy, having at certain seasons a
very bad name;--and here on their outward journey her husband had
been taken ill. She had never ceased to think of the fortnight she
had spent there among uncouth strangers, during a portion of which
his life had trembled in the balance. Early, therefore, in those
four months she begged that she might not be taken round by Punt'
Arenas. There was another route. "Harry, if you love me, let me go