These were the reasons why at first she was inclined to resent Guida's laughter. But when she saw that Maitre Ranulph and the curate and Jean himself laughed, she settled down to a grave content until they landed. They had scarce reached the deserted chapel where their dinner was to be cooked by Maitresse Aimable, when Ranulph called them to note a vessel bearing in their direction. "She's not a coasting craft," said Jean. "She doesn't look like a merchant vessel," said Ranulph, eyeing her through his telescope. "Why, she's a warship!" he added. Jean thought she was not, but Maitre Ranulph said "Pardi, I ought to know, Jean. Ship-building is my trade, to say nothing of guns--I wasn't two years in the artillery for nothing. See the low bowsprit and the high poop. She's bearing this way. She'll be Narcissus!" he said slowly. That was Philip d'Avranche's ship. Guida's face lighted, her heart beat faster. Ranulph turned on his heel. "Where are you going, Ro?" Guida said, taking a step after him. "On the other side, to my men and the wreck," he said, pointing. Guida glanced once more towards the man-o'-war: and then, with mischief in her eye, turned towards Jean. "Suppose," she said to him archly, "suppose the ship should want to come in, of course you'd remember your onc' 'Lias, and say, 'A bi'tot, good-bye!"' An evasive "Ah bah!" was the only reply Jean vouchsafed. Ranulph joined his men at the wreck, and the Reverend Lorenzo Dow went about the Lord's business in the little lean-to of sail-cloth and ship's lumber which had been set up near to the toil of the carpenters. When the curate entered the but the sick man was in a doze. He turned his head from side to side restlessly and mumbled to himself. The curate, sitting on the ground beside the man, took from his pocket a book, and began writing in a strange, cramped hand. This book was his journal. When a youth he had been a stutterer, and had taken refuge from talk in writing, and the habit stayed even as his affliction grew less. The important events of the day or the week, the weather, the wind, the tides, were recorded, together with sundry meditations of the Reverend Lorenzo Dow. The pages were not large, and brevity was Mr. Dow's journalistic virtue. Beyond the diligent keeping of this record, he had no habits, certainly no precision, no remembrance, no system: the business of his life ended there. He had quietly vacated two curacies because there had been bitter complaints that the records of certain baptisms, marriages, and burials might only be found in the chequered journal of his life, sandwiched between fantastic reflections and remarks upon the rubric. The records had been exact enough, but the system was not canonical, and it rested too largely upon the personal ubiquity of the itinerary priest, and the safety of his journal--and of his life.