As she walked past their huts with her light, girlish tread, they would come forth shyly, bowing many times as they approached, and offer her a long spray of the flowering hibiscus, or a pretty garland of crimson ti-leaves, saying at the same time, many times over, in their own tongue, "Receive it, Korong; receive it, Queen of the Clouds! You are good.

You are kind.

You are a daughter of the Sun.

We are glad you have come to us." A young girl soon makes herself at home anywhere; and Muriel, protected alike by her native innocence and by the invisible cloak of Polynesian taboo, quickly learned to understand and to sympathize with these poor dusky mothers.

One morning, some weeks after their arrival, she passed down the main street of the village, accompanied by Felix and their two attendants, and reached the _marae_--the open forum or place of public assembly--which stood in its midst; a circular platform, surrounded by bread-fruit trees, under whose broad, cool shade the people were sitting in little groups and talking together.