en
a new green, as if the spirit of spring had revisited the island. The
blue bright sea was dimpled with wavelets.

What a bright glad world it was, and how great must be the sin of a
rebellious spirit, cavilling at the dealings of its Creator! The happy
dog bounced and bounded round his mistress, the birds twittered in the
hedges, the passing farm-labourer with his cartload of seaweed smacked
his whip cheerily as he urged his patient horse along the narrow lane.
A huge van-load of Cockney tourists, singing a boisterous chorus of the
last music-hall song, passed Vixen at a turn of the road, and made a
blot on the serene beauty of the scene. They were going to eat lobsters
and drink bottled beer and play skittles at Le Tac. Vixen rejoiced when
their raucous voices died away on the summer breeze.

"Why is Jersey the peculiar haunt of the vulgar?" she wondered. "It is
such a lovely place that it deserves to be visited by something better
than the refuse of Margate and Ramsgate."

There was a meadow-path which lessened the distance between Les
Tourelles and Mount Orgueil. Vixen had just left the road and entered
the meadow when Argus set up a joyous bark, and ran back to salute a
passing vehicle. It was a St. Helier's fly, driving at a tremendous
pace in the direction from which she had come. A young man lay back in
the carriage, smoking a cigar, with his hat slouched over his eyes.
Vixen could just see the strong sunburnt hand flung up above his head.
It was a foolish fancy, doubtless, but that broad brown hand reminded
her of Rorie's. Argus leaped the stile, rushed after the vehicle, and
saluted it clamorously. The poor brute had been mewed up for a week in
a dull courtyard, and was rejoiced at having something to bark at.

Vixen walked on to the seashore, and the smiling little harbour, and
the brave old castle. There was the usual party of tourists following
the guide through narrow passages and echoing chambers, and peering
into the rooms where Charles Stuart endured his exile, and making those
lively remarks and speculations whereby the average tourist is prone to
reveal his hazy notions of history. Happily Vixen knew of quiet corners
upon the upward walls whither tourists rarely penetrated; nooks in
which she had sat through many an hour of sun and shade, reading,
musing, or sketching with free untutored pencil, for the mere idle
delight of the moment. Here in this loneliness, between land and sea,
she had nurse