after it the shrill notes of a violin and fife playing a merry
tune. Monsieur Laurentie appeared in the foreground of the multitude,
bareheaded, long before we reached the spot.

"O Martin!" I said, "let us get out, and send the carriage back, and
walk up with them to the village."

"And my wife's luggage?" he answered, "and all the toys and presents she
has brought from Paris?"

It was true that the carriage was inconveniently full of parcels, for I
do not think that I had forgotten one of Monsieur Laurentie's people.
But it would not be possible to ride among them, while they were
walking.

"Every man will carry something," I said. "Martin, I must get out."

It was Monsieur Laurentie who opened the carriage-door for me; but the
people did not give him time for a ceremonious salutation. They thronged
about us with _vivats_ as hearty as an English hurrah.

"All the world is here to meet us, monsieur," I said.

"Madame, I have also the honor of presenting to you two strangers from
England," answered Monsieur Laurentie, while the people fell back to
make way for them. Jack and Minima! both wild with delight. We learned
afterward, as we marched up the valley to Ville-en-bois, that Dr. Senior
had taken Jack's place in Brook Street, and insisted upon him and Minima
giving us this surprise. Our procession, headed by the drum, the fife,
and the violin, passed through the village street, from every window of
which a little flag fluttered gayly, and stopped before the presbytery,
where Monsieur Laurentie dismissed it, after a last _vivat_.

The next stage of our homeward journey was made in Monsieur Laurentie's
_char a bancs_, from Ville-en-bois to Granville--Jack and Minima had
returned direct to England, but we were to visit Guernsey on the way.
Captain Carey and Julia made it a point that we should go to see them,
and their baby, before settling down in our London home. Martin was
welcomed with almost as much enthusiasm in St. Peter-Port as I had been
in little Ville-en-bois.

From our room in Captain Carey's house I could look at Sark lying along
the sea, with a belt of foam encircling it. At times, early in the
morning, or when the sunset light fell upon it, I could distinguish the
old windmill, and the church breaking the level line of the summit; and
I could even see the brow of the knoll behind Tardifs cottage. But day
after day the sea between us was rough, and the westerly breeze blew
across the Atlantic, dr