starlight dusk or in the crisper air of a moonlight evening. In every direction the walk is sure to be a pretty one, whether we have the hill of the Corps-de-Garde before us, with its distinctly-marked profile of a French soldier of the days of the Empire lying with crossed hands, the head and feet cutting the sky-line sharp and clear, or the bolder outlines of blue Mount Ory or cloud-capped Pieter Both. Our path always lies through a splendid tangle of vegetation, where the pruning-knife seems the only gardening tool needed, and where the deepening twilight brings out many a heavy perfume from some hidden flower. Above us bends a vault of lapis-lazuli, with globes of light hanging in it, and around us is a heavenly, soft and balmy air. Whenever I say to a resident how delicious I find it all, he or she is sure to answer dolefully, "Wait till the hot weather!" But my idea is, that if there _is_ this terrible time in front of us, it is surely all the more reason why we should enjoy immensely the agreeable present. That there is some very different weather to be battled with is apparent by the extraordinary shutters one sees to all the houses. Imagine doors built as if to stand a siege, strengthened by heavy cross-pieces of wood close together, and, instead of bolt or lock, kept in their places by solid iron bars as thick as my wrist. Every door and window in the length and breadth of the island is furnished with these _contre-vents_, or hurricane-shutters, and they tell their own tale. So do the huge stones, or rather rocks, with which the roofs of the humbler houses and verandas are weighted. My expression of face must have been something amusing when I remarked triumphantly the other day to one of my acquaintances, who had just observed that my house stood in a very exposed situation, "But it has been built a great many years, and must have stood the great hurricanes of 1848 and 1868." "Ah!" replied Cassandra cheerfully; "there was not much left of it, I fancy, after the '48 hurricane, and I _know_ that the veranda was blown right _over_ the house in the gale of '68." Was not that a cheerful tale to hear of one's house? Just now the weather is wet and windy as well as cold, and the constant and capricious heavy showers reduce the lawn-tennis players to despair.