a great book with my recollections of those
wonderful days when I was a boy of twelve and Carette Le Marchant was a
girl of ten, and far and away the prettiest girl in Sercq,--or in Guernsey
or Jersey either, for that matter, I'll wager. And at that time I would
have fought on the spot any boy not too visibly beyond me who dared to hold
any other opinion.

My mother and my grandfather did not by any means approve my endless
battles, I am bound to say, and I do not think I was by nature of a
quarrelsome disposition, but it seems to me now that a good deal of my time
was spent in boyish warfare, and as often as not Carette was in one way or
another accountable for it.

Not that herself or her looks could be called in question. These spoke for
themselves, though I grant you she was a fiery little person and easily
provoked. If any attack was made on her looks or her doings it was usually
only for my provocation, as the knights in olden times flung down their
gauntlets by way of challenge. But there were other matters relating to
Carette, or rather to her family, which I could defend only with my fists,
and not at all with my judgment even at twelve years old, and only for her
sake who had, of herself, nothing whatever to do with them.

For the Le Marchants of Brecqhou were known and held in a somewhat
wholesome respect of fear, by all grown-up dwellers in the Islands, from
Alderney to Jersey.

It was not simply that they were bold and successful free-traders.
Free-trade--or, as some would call it, smuggling--was the natural commerce
of the Islands, and there were not very many whose fingers were not in the
golden pie. My grandfather, Philip Carre, was one, however, and he would
have starved sooner than live by any means which did not commend themselves
to his own very clear views of right and wrong. The Le Marchants had made
themselves a name for reckless daring, and carelessness of other people's
well-being when it ran counter to their own, which gave them right of way
among their fellows, but won comment harsh enough behind their backs. Many
a strange story was told of them, and as a rule the stories lost nothing in
the telling.

But my boyish recollections of Carette,--Carterette in full, but shortened
by everyone to Carette, unless it was Aunt Jeanne Falla under very great
provocation, which did not, indeed, happen often but was not absolutely
unknown,--my recollections of Carette, and of my mother, and my
grandf