hem along the floors before the critical
gaze of my mother and Julia. We unpacked chairs and tables, scanning
anxiously for damages on the polished wood, and setting them one after
another in a row against the walls. I went about as in some dream. The
house commanded a splendid view of the whole group of the Channel
Islands, and the rocky islets innumerable strewed about the sea. The
afternoon sun was shining full upon Sark, and whenever I looked through
the window I could see the cliffs of the Havre Gosselin, purple in the
distance, with a silver thread of foam at their foot. No wonder that my
thoughts wandered, and the words my mother and Julia were speaking went
in at one ear and out at the other. Certainly I was dreaming; but which
part was the dream?

"I don't believe he cares a straw about the carpets!" exclaimed Julia,
in a disappointed tone.

"I do indeed, dear Julia," I said, bringing myself back to the carpets.
Here I had been obliged to give in to Julia's taste. She had set her
mind upon having flowers in her drawing-room carpet, and there they
were, large garlands of bright-colored blossoms, very gay, and, as I
ventured to remark to myself, very gaudy.

"You like it better than you did in the pattern?" she asked, anxiously.

I did not like it one whit better, but I should have been a brute if I
had said so. She was gazing at it and me with so troubled an expression,
that I felt it necessary to set her mind at ease.

"It is certainly handsomer than the pattern?" I said, regarding it
attentively; "very much handsomer."

"You like it better than the plain thing you chose at first?" pursued
Julia.

I was about to be hunted into a corner, and forced into denying my own
taste--a process almost more painful than denying one's faith--when my
mother came to my rescue. She could read us both as an open book, and
knew the precise moment to come between us.

"Julia, my love," she said, "remember that we wish to show Martin those
patterns while it is daylight. To-morrow is Sunday, you know."

A little tinge of color crept over Julia's tintless face as she told
Pellet he might go. I almost wished that I might be dismissed too; but
it was only a vague, wordless wish. We then drew near to the window,
from which we could see Sark so clearly, and Julia drew out of her
pocket a very large envelope, which was bursting with its contents.

They were small scraps of white silk and white satin. I took them
mechanically