ugh he waited long he did
not seem impatient; patience was part of him, and not the least part.
At last he sat down on a boulder between the house and the shore, and
scarcely moved, as minute after minute passed, and then an hour and
more, and no one came. Presently there was a soft footstep beside him,
and he turned. A dog's nose thrust itself into his hand.

"Biribi, Biribi!" he said, patting its head with his big hand. "Watching
and waiting, eh, old Biribi?" The dog looked into his eyes as if he
knew what was said, and would speak--or, indeed, was speaking in his
own language. "That's the way of life, Biribi--watching and waiting, and
watching--always watching."

Suddenly the dog caught its head away from his hand, gave a short joyful
bark, and ran slowly up the hillock.

"Guida and the child," the man said aloud, moving towards the
house--"Guida and the child!"

He saw her and the little one before they saw him. Presently the child
said: "See, maman," and pointed. Guida started. A swift flush passed
over her face, then she smiled and made a step forward to meet her
visitor.

"Maitre Ranulph--Ranulph!" she said, holding out her hand. "It's a long
time since we met."

"A year," he answered simply, "just a year." He looked down at the
child, then stooped, caught him up in his arms and said: "He's grown.
Es-tu gentiment?" he added to the child--"es-tu gentiment, m'sieu'?"

The child did not quite understand. "Please?" it said in true Jersey
fashion--at which the mother was troubled.

"O Guilbert, is that what you should say?" she asked. The child looked
up quaintly at her, and with the same whimsical smile which Guida had
given to another so many years ago, he looked at Ranulph and said:
"Pardon, monsieur."

"Coum est qu'on etes, m'sieu'?" said Ranulph in another patois greeting.

Guida shook her head reprovingly. The child glanced swiftly at his
mother as though asking permission to reply as he wished, then back at
Ranulph, and was about to speak, when Guida said: "I have not taught him
the Jersey patois, Ranulph; only English and French."

Her eyes met his clearly, meaningly. Her look said to him as plainly as
words, The child's destiny is not here in Jersey. But as if he knew
that in this she was blinding herself, and that no one can escape the
influences of surroundings, he held the child back from him, and said
with a smile: "Coum est qu'on vos portest?"

Now the child with elfish sense of the situat