in as central and prominent a situation as
possible, but Tardif and his mother did not frequent it. They belonged
to a little knot of dissenters, who met for worship in a small room,
when Tardif generally took the lead. For this reason a sort of coldness
existed between him and the larger portion of his fellow-islanders. But
there was a second and more important cause for a slight estrangement.
He had married an Englishwoman many years ago, much to the astonishment
and disappointment of his neighbors; and since her death he had held
himself aloof from all the good women who would have been glad enough to
undertake the task of consoling him for her loss. Tardif, therefore, was
left very much to himself in his isolated cottage, and his mother's
deafness caused her also to be no very great favorite with any of the
gossips of the island. It was so difficult to make her understand any
thing that could not be expressed by signs, that no one except her son
attempted to tell her the small topics of the day.

All this told upon me, and my standing among them. At first I met a few
curious glances as I roamed about the island; but my dress was as poor
and plain as any of theirs, and I suppose there was nothing in my
appearance, setting aside my dress, which could attract them. I learned
afterward that Tardif had told those who asked him that my name was
Ollivier, and they jumped to the conclusion that I belonged to a family
of that name in Guernsey; this shielded me from the curiosity that might
otherwise have been troublesome and dangerous. I was nobody but a poor
young woman from Guernsey, who was lodging in the spare room of Tardif's
cottage.

I set myself to grow used to their mode of life, and if possible to
become so useful to them that, when my money was all spent, they might
be willing to keep me with them; for I shrank from the thought of the
time when I must be thrust out of this nest, lonely and silent as it
was. As the long, dismal nights of winter set in, with the wind sweeping
across the island for several days together with a dreary, monotonous
moan which never ceased, I generally sat by their fire, for I had nobody
but Tardif to talk to; and now and then there arose an urgent need
within me to listen to some friendly voice, and to hear my own speaking
in reply. There were only two books in the house, the Bible and the
"Pilgrim's Progress," both of them in French; and I had not learned
French beyond the few phrase