If the telling has wearied you, I am sorry. For myself, I like to think back upon it all, and to trace the beginnings of some things of which I have seen the endings, and of some which are not ended yet, thank God!--and to find, in all that lies between, the signs of a Power that is beyond any power of man's, and is, indeed, and rightly I think, beyond even the power of any man's full understanding. CHAPTER VI HOW CARETTE CAME BY HER GOLDEN BRIDGE And Carette-- I recall her in those days in a thousand different circumstances, and always like the sunlight or the lightning, gleaming, sparkling, flashing. For she could be as steadily radiant as the one and as unexpectedly fickle as the other, and I do not know that I liked her any the less on that account, though truly it made her none too easy to deal with at times. Her quick changes and childish vagaries kept one, at all events, very much alive and in a state of constant expectation. And whenever I think of her I thank God for Jeanne Falla, and all that that wisest and sharpest and tenderest of women was able to do for her. For, you see, Carette was peculiarly circumstanced, and might have gone to waste but for her aunt Jeanne. Her mother died when she was six years old, after four years' life on Brecqhou, and Carette was left to be utterly spoiled by her father and six big brothers, wild and reckless men all of them, but all, I am sure, with tender spots in their hearts for the lovely child who seemed so out of place among them, though for anyone outside they had little thought or care. My own thoughts delight to linger back among these earlier scenes before the more trying times came. If you will let me, I will try to picture Carette to you as I see her in my mind's eye, and I can see her as she was then as clearly as though it were yesterday. I see a girl of ten, of slight, graceful figure, and of so active a nature that if you found her quite still you feared at once that something was wrong with her. Her face was very charming, browned richly with the kiss of sun and wind, and without a freckle, yet not so brown as to hide the rich colour of her feelings, which swept across her face as quickly as the cloud-shadows across the sparkling face of the sea. Her eyes were large and dark--all alight with the joy of life; sparkling with fun and mischief; blazing forked lightnings at some offence, fancied as often as not; big with entreaty that none could refuse; more rarely--in those days--deep with sober thought; but always--shining, sparkling, blazing, entreating--the most wonderful and fascinating eyes in the world to the boy at her side, on whom they shone and sparkled and blazed and entreated, and moulded always to her imperious little will.