hands, and did it with so much skill, and with so strong a wish to
please us, that we grew to love her as if she had been our own child.

When the time came for us to keep in doors from the rain, the boys
would oft lay by their work, and sit to hear Jane talk of what she had
seen in the East, and Ernest and Fritz would read to her by turns such
books as she might choose. I was glad to see that this wrought a great
change in my sons, whose mode of life had made them rough in their ways
and loud in their speech--faults which we did not think of so long as
there was no one to see or hear them.

When the spring came, the boys went in our boat to the spot where
they had found Jane, which we now knew by the name of "Jane's Isle,"
and brought back some beans, which were new to them. These we found to
be COF-FEE. Jane told us that they were by no means scarce, but that
she had not made use of them, as she knew no way to roast or grind the
beans, which she found in a green state.

"Do you think," said my wife, "that the plant would grow here?"

I then thought for the first time how fond she was of it. There had
been some bags on board the ship, but I had not brought them from the
wreck; and my wife had once said that she would like to see the plant
in our ground. Now that we knew where to get it, she told me that it
was one of the few things that she felt the loss of. When the boys
heard this, they set out on a trip to Jane's Isle, and while there they
went to the spot where she had dwelt for so long, and sought for what
things she had left when she came to live with us.

All these were brought to Rock, House, and I may tell you that Fritz