children who laid hold of and talked to her all at once. After an exchange of their accustomed friendly greetings, she went in, with the two keepers, whilst Michael drew off Francine and Josèphe towards _Brunette_, who was waiting for them on a pinnacle of rock, eyeing them and bleating at them. The youngster, accustomed to chase his father's sheep upon the declivities of the Ile des Morts, endeavored to get at her; but the capricious creature sprung from point to point along the precipices, letting herself at every moment almost be caught, and at every moment bounding away from the hand that just could touch her. 

Whilst the children kept up this chase, with a thousand calls to one another and a thousand peals of laughter, Ropars and Dorot entered the eating-room in which Geneviève was already laying the cloth. It was a room of middling size, furnished by the keeper himself at the period of his marriage, and ornamented with a few marine engravings. Amongst these was particularly distinguished a portrait of Jean Bart, that nautical Hercules on whom, as all the world knows, his traditional celebrity has fastened all manner of superhuman exploits and impossible adventures. 

Having made his guest sit down, Mathieu went off to disinter his bottle of Rousillon wine; and brought it back all whitened with the sand, and capped with a green-waxed cork that bespoke its noble birth-place. Dorot good-temperedly complained of such extravagance, and hinted that he could not make his visit a long one, inasmuch as the officer commanding the post of the Ile des Morts had charged him to bring the skiff back before sunset. Geneviève therefore hurried herself to serve up the dinner, and called the children to take their places at table. 

With persons whose entire life was contracted within the narrow limits of two small islands, the conversation could not be much varied. Mathieu talked of his still-lines set between the headlands of Trébéron, and Dorot of his small cherry-tree. The latter might be regarded as the one stumbling block of pride, over which the habitual modesty of the worthy sergeant was sure to trip. No other keeper before his time had succeeded in securing what he planted, from the sea wind; this was the only tree that had ever been seen in the two islands; and Lucullus might well have been less proud of the first cherry-tree that he brought from Persia, for the purpose of gracing his triumph. Humble as regards everything else, Dorot drew himself up proudly when there was any question of his poor wild-stock; he only let it be seen by his friends and his superiors, and then at their urgent solicitation. 

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