on, a pretty stone-built house, entirely new, situate
between the sea and a garden. On the corner of this house was inscribed
the name of the "Bravees." Its front formed a part of the wall of the
port itself, and it was remarkable for a double row of windows: on the
north, alongside a little enclosure filled with flowers, and on the
south commanding a view of the ocean. It had thus two _facades_, one
open to the tempest and the sea, the other looking into a garden filled
with roses.

These two frontages seemed made for the two inmates of the house--Mess
Lethierry and Deruchette.

The "Bravees" was popular at St. Sampson, for Mess Lethierry had at
length become a popular man. This popularity was due partly to his good
nature, his devotedness, and his courage; partly to the number of lives
he had saved; and a great deal to his success, and to the fact that he
had awarded to St. Sampson the honour of being the port of the departure
and arrival of the new steamboat. Having made the discovery that the
"Devil Boat" was decidedly a success, St. Peter's, the capital, desired
to obtain it for that port, but Lethierry held fast to St. Sampson. It
was his native town. "It was there that I was first pitched into the
water," he used to say; hence his great local popularity. His position
as a small landed proprietor paying land-tax, made him, what they call
in Guernsey, an _unhabitant_. He was chosen douzenier. The poor sailor
had mounted five out of six steps of the Guernsey social scale; he had
attained the dignity of "Mess"; he was rapidly approaching the Monsieur;
and who could predict whether he might not even rise higher than that?
who could say that they might not one day find in the almanack of
Guernsey, under the heading of "Nobility and Gentry," the astonishing
and superb inscription,--_Lethierry, Esq._?

But Mess Lethierry had nothing of vanity in his nature, or he had no
sense of it; or if he had, disdained it: to know that he was useful was
his greatest pleasure; to be popular touched him less than being
necessary; he had, as we have already said, only two objects of delight,
and consequently only two ambitions: the Durande and Deruchette.

However this may have been, he had embarked in the lottery of the sea,
and had gained the chief prize.

This chief prize was the Durande steaming away in all her pride.

VII

THE SAME GODFATHER AND THE SAME PATRON SAINT

Having created his steamboat, Lethierry had chr