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 sojourn¹ 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 entirely² 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 majestic³ sweep of the desert of Sahara, the waves roll and break with a mighty⁴ noise. Here there are to be seen many uneven⁵ waste spaces; it is a region of sand where stunted⁶ trees and dwarfish⁷ evergreen⁸ oaks shelter themselves behind the dunes⁹. A curious kind of wild flower, a pink and fragrant¹⁰ carnation¹¹, blooms there profusely¹² all summer long. Two or three villages, composed of humble¹³ little cottages, whitewashed¹⁴ like the bungalows¹⁵ of Algeria, break the loneliness of this region. These homes have planted about them such flowers as can best resist the sea-winds. Dark skinned fishermen and their families, a hardy¹⁶ honest people, still very primitive¹⁷ at the time of which I write, live here; even sea-bathers had not found their way to these shores.  
In an old forgotten copy-book where my sister had written down (in a stilted¹⁸ manner) the impressions of that summer I find this description of our lodgings¹⁹.
 
“We dwell in the centre of the village, in the square, at the Mayor's house.
 
“This house has two ells, which are spacious²⁰ beyond measure.
 
“Its dazzling whitewashed surfaces sparkle in the sun, its window shutters²¹ are fastened with large iron hooks and painted a dark green as is the custom here. The flower bed that is planted in the form of a wreath all around the house grows vigorously in the sand. The day-lilies, one surpassing the other in beauty, open their yellow, pink and red blossoms, and the mignonette beds which at noon-time are fully²² abloom waft²³ on the air an odor that is sweet as the scent²⁴ of orange blossoms.
 
“Opposite us a little path hollowed out of the sand descends²⁶ rapidly to the edge of the sea.”
 
My first really intimate acquaintance with the sea-wrack, crabs²⁷, sea-nettles, jelly-fish, and the thousand and one other small creatures that inhabit the ocean, dates from this visit to the Long-Beach.
 
And during this same summer I fell in love for the first time—my beloved was a little village girl. But here, so that the story may be related more accurately²⁸, I will allow my sister, through the medium of the old copy-book, to speak again—I merely copy:
 
“Dozens of the children (fishermen's boys and girls), tanned and brown and with little legs all bare, followed Pierre, or audaciously hurried before him, and from time to time turned and looked at him wonderingly with their beautiful dark eyes. At that time a little gentleman was a rare enough spectacle in that part of the country to be worth the trouble of running after.
 
“Every day Pierre, accompanied by this crowd, would descend²⁵ to the beach by means of the little footpath²⁹ scooped³⁰ out of the sand. There he would run and pick up the shells that, upon that coast, are so exquisitely³¹ beautiful. They are yellow, pink, purple and many other bright colors, and they have the most delicate and varied³² forms. Pierre admired them greatly, and the little ones who always followed him would silently offer him hands full.
 
“Veronica was the most attentive³³ of al............