The Channel Islands appeared to me to be peopled with lovers. One of Sir William Napier’s beautiful daughters had just married that gallant soldier, Colonel MacDougall. At Guernsey, I had left the General’s only son engaging himself to pretty Bessie Alexander, whom we called the “white-heart cherry,” on account of her pink and white, rarely-blent complexion, and here, at Alderney, I found her sister preparing to become mine. We spent a short but pleasant time with Captain Alexander and his wife. Before leaving Alderney, let me say a complimentary word in favour of the garden which surrounded the house, and confess that, even at the interval of forty years, the recollection of its peaches, apricots, and, above all, its pears, makes the “mouth of my memory” water. [Sidenote: ELEANOR’S WELL] Rose became an inmate of Millard’s Hill, paying occasional visits to the pretty Rectory of our cousin, Richard Boyle, the Incumbent of Marston, whose unbounded hospitality became a proverb with all who knew him. The year after Cavendish’s marriage this favourite cousin of ours followed the example thus set him, and gave a charming mistress to his charming home. Eleanor Gordon, known in the literary and artistic world as E. V. B., was young, lovely, and loveable. Her great talent for drawing had already attracted much admiration whilst she was still a girl, and, after her marriage, the beautiful illustrations which she designed of “Nursery Rhymes,” “A Children’s Summer,” “The Story Without an End,” and many others too numerous to mention, acquired for her the fame she deserved. She put out her talents, indeed, to interest in a good cause, realising by the sale of her works sufficient sums to enable her to do good work in the parish. “Eleanor’s Well,” for that was the grateful name bestowed on it, supplied the “water,” of which the villagers had long stood in need; while two beautiful windows—designed by herself—embellished her husband’s lately-restored church, without mentioning the complete new roofing and a new set of Sacramental Plate—all were the proceeds of her labour. It is not often that talents are turned to so good and so unselfish account. The erection of the little “Well” was commemorated by a friend and neighbour in the following graceful lines:— ELEANOR’S WELL