about the corners of the eyes and lips, and across the forehead. They
could hardly be called wrinkles yet, but they were the first faint
sketch of them, and it is impossible to obliterate the slightest touch
etched by Time. She was five years older than I--thirty-three last
birthday. There was no more chance for our Guernsey girls to conceal
their age than for the unhappy daughters of peers, whose dates are
faithfully kept, and recorded in the Peerage. The upper classes of the
island, who were linked together by endless and intricate ramifications
of relationship, formed a kind of large family, with some of its
advantages and many of its drawbacks. In one sense we had many things in
common; our family histories were public property, as also our private
characters and circumstances. For instance, my own engagement to Julia,
and our approaching marriage, gave almost as much interest to the island
as though we were members of each household.

I have looked out a passage in the standard work upon the Channel
Islands. They are the words of an Englishman who was studying us more
philosophically than we imagined. Unknown to ourselves we had been under
his microscope. "At a period not very distant, society in Guernsey
grouped itself into two divisions--one, including those families who
prided themselves on ancient descent and landed estates, and who
regarded themselves as the _pur sang_; and the other, those whose
fortunes had chiefly been made during the late war or in trade. The
former were called _Sixties_, the latter were the _Forties_."

Now Julia and I belonged emphatically to the Sixties. We had never been
debased by trade, and a _mésalliance_ was not known in our family. To be
sure, my father had lost a fortune instead of making one in any way; but
that did not alter his position or mine. We belonged to the aristocracy
of Guernsey, and _noblesse oblige_. As for my marriage with Julia, it