tle and bent, and dressed in an
odd and ugly costume, met us at the door, dropping a courtesy to me, and
looking at me with dim, watery eyes. I was about to speak to her, when
Tardif bent down his head, and put his mouth to her ear, shouting to her
with a loud voice, but in their peculiar jargon, of which I could not
make out a single word.

"My poor mother is deaf," he said to me, "very deaf; neither can she
speak English. Most of the young people in Sark can talk in English a
little, but she is old and too deaf to learn. She has only once been
off the island."

I looked at her, wondering for a moment what she could have to think of,
but, with an intelligible gesture of welcome, she beckoned me into my
own room. The aspect of it was somewhat dreary; the walls were of bare
plaster, but dazzlingly white, with one little black _silhouette_ of a
woman's head hanging in a common black frame over the low, open hearth,
on which a fire of seaweed was smouldering, with a quantity of gray
ashes round the small centre of smoking embers. There was a little round
table, uncovered, but as white as snow, and two chairs, one of them an
arm-chair, and furnished with cushions. A four-post bedstead, with
curtains of blue and white check, occupied the larger portion of the
floor.

It was not a luxurious apartment; and for an instant I could hardly
realize the fact that it was to be my home for an indefinite period.
Some efforts had evidently been made to give it a look of welcome,
homely as it was. A pretty china tea cup and saucer, with a plate or two
to match, were set out on the deal table, and the cushioned arm-chair
had been drawn forward to the hearth. I sat down in it, and buried my
face in my hands, thinking, till Tardif knocked at the door, and carried
in my trunk.

"Will it do, mam'zelle?" he asked, "will it do?"

"It will do very nicely, Tardif," I answered; "but how ever am I to talk
to your mother if she does not know English?"

"Mam'zelle," he said, as he uncorded my trunk, "you must order me as you
would a servant. Through the winter I shall always be at hand; and you
will soon be used to us and our ways, and we shall be used to you and
your ways. I will do my best for you, mam'zelle; trust me, I will study
to do my best, and make you very happy here. I will be ready to take you
away whenever you desire to go. Look upon me as your hired servant."

He waited upon me all the evening, but with a quick attention to my