see, it's all that's behind them--the houses, the fields, and the boats
at sea, and the men and women working and working, and sleeping and
eating, and breaking their hearts with misery, and wondering what is to
be the end of it all; yet praying a little, it may be, and dreaming a
little--perhaps a very little." She sighed, and continued: "That's as
far as I get with thinking. What else can one do in this little island?
Why, on the globe Maitre Damian has at St. Aubin's, Jersey is no bigger
than the head of a pin. And what should one think of here?"

Her eyes were on the sea. Its mystery was in them, the distance, the ebb
and flow, the light of wonder and of adventure too. "You--you've been
everywhere," she went on. "Do you remember you sent me once from Malta a
tiny silver cross? That was years ago, soon after the Battle of Jersey,
when I was a little bit of a girl. Well, after I got big enough I used
to find Malta and other places on Maitre Damian's globe. I've lived
always there, on that spot"--she pointed towards Jersey--"on that spot
one could walk round in a day. What do I know! You've been everywhere
--everywhere. When you look back you've got a thousand pictures in your
mind. You've seen great cities, temples, palaces, great armies, fleets;
you've done things: you've fought and you've commanded, though you're so
young, and you've learned about men and about many countries. Look at
what you know, and then, if you only think, you'll laugh at what I know."

For a moment he was puzzled what to answer. The revelation of the girl's
nature had come so quickly upon him. He had looked for freshness,
sweetness, intelligence, and warmth of temperament, but it seemed to him
that here were flashes of power. Yet she was only seventeen. She had
been taught to see things with her own eyes and not another's, and she
spoke of them as she saw them; that was all. Yet never but to her mother
had Guida said so much to any human being as within these past few