n is a combination of the Saxon
fairness, with the proverbial ruddiness of the Norman people--rosy
cheeks and blue eyes; but the eyes want brilliancy. The English training
dulls them. Their liquid glances will be irresistible whenever the
secret is found of giving them that depth which is the glory of the
Parisienne. Happily Englishwomen are not yet quite transformed into the
Parisian type. Deruchette was not a Parisian; yet she was certainly not
a Guernesiaise. Lethierry had brought her up to be neat and delicate and
pretty; and so she was.

Deruchette had, at times, an air of bewitching langour, and a certain
mischief in the eye, which were altogether involuntary. She scarcely
knew, perhaps, the meaning of the word love, and yet not unwillingly
ensnared those about her in the toils. But all this in her was innocent.
She never thought of marrying.

Deruchette had the prettiest little hands in the world, and little feet
to match them. Sweetness and goodness reigned throughout her person; her
family and fortune were her uncle Mess Lethierry; her occupation was
only to live her daily life; her accomplishments were the knowledge of a
few songs; her intellectual gifts were summed up in her simple
innocence; she had the graceful repose of the West Indian woman, mingled
at times with giddiness and vivacity, with the teasing playfulness of a
child, yet with a dash of melancholy. Her dress was somewhat rustic, and
like that peculiar to her country--elegant, though not in accordance
with the fashions of great cities; for she wore flowers in her bonnet
all the year round. Add to all this an open brow, a neck supple and
graceful, chestnut hair, a fair skin slightly freckled with exposure to
the sun, a mouth somewhat large, but well-defined, and visited from time
to time by a dangerous smile. This was Deruchette.

Sometimes in the evening, a little after sunset, at the moment when the
dusk of the sky mingles with the dusk of the sea, and twilight invests
the waves with a mysterious awe, the people beheld, entering the harbour
of St. Sampson, upon the dark rolling waters, a strange, undefined
thing, a monstrous form which puffed and blew; a horrid machine which
roared like a wild beast, and smoked like a volcano; a species of Hydra
foaming among the breakers, and leaving behind it a dense cloud, as it
rushed on towards the town with a frightful beating of its fins, and a
throat belching forth flame. This was Durande.

II