ve me a kiss for her," she chirped.

"I'll give you a dozen now," I cried, jumping up, and giving her the full
tale right heartily.

"Ma fe, yes! You are getting on, mon gars," she said, as she set the black
sun-bonnet straight again. "You tackle Carette that way next time you see
her, and--"

"Mon Gyu, I wouldn't dare to!" And Aunt Jeanne still found me subject for
laughter.

CHAPTER XVIII

HOW WE CAME ACROSS MAIN ROUGE

I was sorely tempted to run across to Brecqhou for one more sight of
Carette before I left home, but decided at last to leave matters as they
were. Beyond the pleasure of seeing her I could hope to gain little, for
she was not the one to show her heart before others, and too rash an
endeavour might provoke her to that which was not really in her.

As things were I could cherish the hopes that were in me to the fullest,
and one makes better weather with hope than with doubt. Carette knew now
all that I could tell her, and Aunt Jeanne would be a tower of strength to
me in my absence. I could leave the leaven to work. And I think that if I
had not given my mother that last day she would have felt it sorely, and
with reason.

The deepest that was in us never found very full vent at Belfontaine, and
that, I think, was due very largely to the quiet and kindly, but somewhat
rigid, Quakerism of my grandfather. We felt and knew without babbling into
words.

So all that day my mother hovered about me with a quiet face and hungry
eyes, but never one word that might have darkened my going. She had braced
her heart to it, as the women of those days had to do, and as all women of
all times must whose men go down to the sea in ships.

And I do not think there was any resentment in her mind at my feeling for
Carette. For she spoke of her many times and always in the nicest way,
seeing perhaps the pleasure it gave me. She was a very wise and thoughtful
woman, though not so much given to the expression of her wisdom as was
Jeanne Falla, and I think she understood that this too was inevitable, and
so she had quietly brought her mind to it. But after all, all this is but
saying that her tower of quiet strength was built on hidden foundations of
faith and hope, and her mother-love needed no telling.

Next day my grandfather and Krok made holiday, in order to carry me over to
Peter Port and see the _Swallow_ for themselves, and my mother's fervent
"God keep you, Phil!" and all the other prayers that I f