But among those who have daily gathered about the same hearthstone,
there are, I am sure, many who, without confessing it, are susceptible
in varying degrees to impressions of this sort. And do not such people
often, because of an old stone wall, a garden known and loved since
childhood, an old terrace which has become in indestructible part of
their memory, or an old tree that has not changed form within their
lives, seek a warrant for their own hope of immortality?

And doubtless, alas! before their birth these objects lent the same
delusive countenance to others, to those unknown now turned to dust and
gone to nothingness, who may not even have been of their blood and race.




CHAPTER XX.



It was about the middle of the summer, after my severe illness, that I
went to the Island for a long visit. I was taken there by my brother and
my sister, the latter was like a second mother to me. After a sojourn
of several weeks with our relatives at St. Pierre Oleron (my good Aunt
Claire and her two old unmarried daughters) we went alone, we three, to
a fishing village upon the Long-Beach, which at that time was entirely
off the line of travel. The Long-Beach is that portion of the
Island commanding a view of the ocean over which the west winds blow
ceaselessly. Upon this coast, which extends without a curve straight and
seemingly limitless, with the majestic sweep of the desert of Sahara,
the waves roll and break with a mighty noise. Here there are to be seen