’I am still buying and sending down bricks, timber, &c.  Two Auckland carpenters, thoroughly steady men, left Norfolk Island, about three weeks after we left it, for the Melanesian islands.  They have been putting up my special building.  We have no doors like hall doors, as all the rooms open with glass doors on to the verandah, and they are the doors for going in and out.  Comprenez-vous?  The ground slopes away from these two houses for some 200 yards or more to a little stream; and this slope is all covered with sweet potatoes and vegetables, and Codrington and Palmer have planted any number of trees, bushes, flowers, &c.  Everything grows, and grows luxuriantly.  Such soil, such a climate!

’By-and-by I shall have, I hope, such myrtles and azaleas, kalmias and crotons, and pine-apples and almond trees, bananas and tree-ferns, and magnolias and camellias, &c., all in the open air.

’The ground slopes up beyond the little stream, a beautiful wooded bank, wooded with many kinds of trees and bushes, large Norfolk Island pines; cattle and sheep stray about.  Oh! how very pretty it is!  And then beyond and above this first slope, the eye travels along the slopes of the Pitt to its summit, about 1,000 feet, a pretty little hill.  It is, indeed, a calm peaceful scene, away from noise and bustle, plenty of pleasant sounds of merry boys working in the gardens, and employing themselves in divers ways.  The prospect is (D.  Gr.) a very happy one.  It is some pleasure to work here, where the land gives “her increase” indeed.

’All seem very happy and well pleased with the place.  I don’t see how it can be otherwise, and yet to the young people there may be something attractive in society.  But the young ones must occasionally go to Auckland or Sydney, or whithersoever they please, for a two or three months’ holiday.  For me, what can I desire more than this place affords?  More than half of each year spent here if I live, and quietly, with any amount of work, uninterrupted work, time for quiet reading and thought.  This room of mine in which I now am sitting is magnifique, my dear Joan; seriously, a very good room.  You see it will be full of boys and girls; and I must have in it many things, not books only, for the general use of all here, so that I determined to make it a nice place at once.

’This room then, nicely lined, looking rather like a wooden box, it is true, but clean and airy, is 22 feet x 14 feet 6 in., and the wall plates 9 feet 6 in. high, the ceiling coved a little, so as to be nearly 14 feet high in the centre.  What do you think of that for a room?  It has a fire-place, and wide verandah, which is nearly 6 feet above the ground, so that I am high and dry, and have all the better view too, quite a grand flight of steps—­a broad ladder—­up into my house.  The Mahaga lads and I call it my tree-house.

’Then I have one great luxury.  I thought I would have it, and it is so nice.  My room opens into the Chapel by red baize swinging doors; my private entrance, for there is a regular porch where the rest go in.