My engagement to Julia came about so easily and naturally that, as I said, I was perfectly contented with it.  We had been engaged since the previous Christmas, and were to be married in the early summer, as soon as a trip through Switzerland would be agreeable.  We were to set up housekeeping for ourselves; that was a point Julia was bent upon.  A suitable house had fallen vacant in one of the higher streets of St. Peter-Port, which commanded a noble view of the sea and the surrounding islands.  We had taken it, though it was farther from the Grange and my mother than I should have chosen my home to be.  She and Julia were busy, pleasantly busy, about the furnishing of it.  Never had I seen my mother look so happy, or so young.  Even my father paid her a compliment or two, which had the effect of bringing a pretty pink flush to her white cheeks, and of making her sunken eyes shine.  As to myself, I was quietly happy, without a doubt.  Julia was a good girl, everybody said that, and Julia loved me devotedly.  I was on the point of becoming master of a house and owner of a considerable income; for Julia would not hear of there being any marriage settlements which would secure to her the property she was bringing to me.  I found that making love, even to my cousin, who was like a sister to me, was upon the whole a pleasurable occupation.  Every thing was going on smoothly.

That was till about the middle of March.  I had been to church one Sunday morning with these two women, both devoted to me, and centring all their love and hopes in me, when, as we entered the house on our return, I heard my father calling “Martin!  Martin!” as loudly as he could from his consulting-room.  I answered the call instantly, and whom should I see but a very old friend of mine, Tardif of the Havre Gosselin.  He was standing near the door, as if in too great a hurry to sit down.  His handsome but weather-beaten face betrayed great anxiety, and his shaggy mustache rose and fell, as if the mouth below it was tremulously at work.  My father looked chagrined and irresolute.

“Here’s a pretty piece of work, Martin,” he said; “Tardif wants one of us to go back with him to Sark, to see a woman who has fallen from the cliffs and broken her arm, confound it!”

“For the sake of the good God, Dr. Martin,” cried Tardif, excitedly, and of course speaking in the Sark dialect, “I beg of you to come this instant even.  She has been lying in anguish since mid-day yesterday—­twenty-four hours now, sir.  I started at dawn this morning, but both wind and tide were against me, and I have been waiting here some time.  Be quick, doctor.  Mon Dieu! if she should be dead!”

The poor fellow’s voice faltered, and his eyes met mine imploringly.  He and I had been fast friends in my boyhood, when all my holidays were spent in Sark, though he was some years older than I; and our friendship was still firm and true, though it had slackened a little from absence.  I shook his hand heartily, giving it a good hard grip in token of my unaltered friendship—­a grip which he returned with his fingers of iron till my own tingled again.