over the cliff; and the cry of the gulls flitting about the rocks; I could hear them all at the same moment, with the deep, quiet tone of the sea sounding below their gay music.  Tardif was going out to fish, and I had helped him to pack his basket.  From my niche in the rocks I could see him getting out of the harbor, and he had caught a glimpse of me, and stood up in his boat, bareheaded, bidding me good-by.  I began to sing before he was quite out of hearing, for he paused upon his oars listening, and had given me a joyous shout, and waved his hat round his head, when he was sure it was I who was singing.  Nothing could be plainer than that he had gone away more glad at heart than he had been all the winter, simply because he believed that I was growing lighter-hearted.  I could not help laughing, yet being touched and softened at the thought of his pleasure.  What a good fellow he was!  I had proved him by this time, and knew him to be one of the truest, bravest, most unselfish men on God’s earth.  How good a thing it was that I had met with him that wild night last October, when I had fled like one fleeing from a bitter slavery!  For a few minutes my thoughts hovered about that old, miserable, evil time; but I did not care to ponder over past troubles.  It was easy to forget them to-day, and I would forget them.  I plucked the daisies, and listened almost drowsily to the birds and the sea, and felt all through me the delicious light and heat of the sun.  Now and then I lifted up my eyes, to watch Tardif tacking about on the water.  There were several boats out, but I kept his in sight, by the help of a queer-shaped patch upon one of the sails.  I wished lazily for a book, but I should not have read it if I had had one.  I was taking into my heart the loveliness of the spring day.

By twelve o’clock I knew my dinner would be ready, and I had been out in the fresh air long enough to be quite ready for it.  Old Mrs. Tardif would be looking out for me impatiently, that she might get the meal over, and the things cleared away, and order restored in her dwelling.  So I quitted my warm nook with a feeling of regret, though I knew I could return to it in an hour.

But one can never return to any thing that is once left.  When we look for it again, even though the place may remain, something has vanished from it which can never come back.  I never returned to my spring-day upon the cliffs of Sark.

A little crumbling path led round the rock and along the edge of the ravine.  I chose it because from it I could see all the fantastic shore, bending in a semicircle toward the isle of Breckhou, with tiny, untrodden bays, covered at this hour with only glittering ripples, and with all the soft and tender shadows of the headlands falling across them.  I had but to look straight below me, and I could see long tresses of glossy seaweed floating under the surface of the sea.  Both my head and my footing were steady, for I had grown accustomed to giddy heights and venturesome