What! has a year gone? Are we celebrating the day of our arrival at Yr Ynys Unyg? More, much more, days flee away, weeks speed on, months glide by us. Has hope gone? Are the cheerful strong hearts weary and low? The elastic young spirits, the energetic wills, the high courage and strong energies, could not always last on the full stretch. But why detail the fits of despondency, the listless hopeless state into which we sometimes fell? Suffice it that nature sometimes asserted her rights, while religion kept us from open despair. Many events occurred, wearisome to the reader, though interesting to ourselves. Sometimes we divided, and half lived in one house and half in the other. We then paid each other visits of ceremony, expending much labour, even if no cost, on the feasts we prepared for our company. Also we established a post, in which we wrote imaginary news from England. The girls became very expert in drawing. We spoke all kinds of languages. We invented stories and told them, many of the children's I have preserved, being very clever and amusing. Also we had another earthquake, which led to a great discovery. No less than that the cliffs behind our house, and reaching down to the Gatty squeezed herself through with the loss of half her garments, fully prepared to prove the new discovery nothing, while Schillie, Madame, and I worked for another half hour, and went through like ladies to see a sight which enchanted us. A most magnificent cavern, cool and dark, though some light penetrated in from above somewhere, the ground was covered with fine dry sand, the numerous grotesque shapes and oddities all around the cavern seemed almost made on purpose for little private habitations and snug corners. It was so large in size that it had nothing of the musty The only thing I did not like about the cavern was that it had innumerable passages and windings about, and odd places, with dark holes, and ghostly-looking corners. I was not satisfied until I had explored them all, blocking up narrow little slits, and doing all I could to rout out anything that might be harbouring there. There was one passage very long and steep, the entrance to it out of the cavern was so narrow we did not notice it at first; but, when once through, we had every here and there light, and it led in one or two instances to other caverns, though none so large as ours, but it always led downwards. At last we came It is impossible to do justice to the beauty of the scene looking at it through the sparkling veil of waters, or to describe our pleasure at this singular discovery. Not only did the outside of the island belong to us, but now we had the secrets of the interior exposed to us, and the right of making what we liked of them. Mother.—"Now, Schillie, this is one of the most Schillie.—"I had hoped your head was cleared of those piratical notions. For my part, I wish someone would come. The King of the Pirates would be welcome so that we could have a little variety." Mother.—"I think you are ungrateful. We have been eighteen months here now, and can you say that we have had one privation or serious trouble?" Schillie.—"June, you have your children near you, you see nothing else and care for nothing else. I own the sight of my Willie, and the long sunny curls of my Puss, would, were it but for one moment, ease my heart, and make me bear hunger, thirst, privations of every kind, without a murmur. We have everything here we can possibly want, and that without having to slave for it. We have food growing up to our mouths, the trees shed clothes for us, the sea, the sky, the air, the island, more lovely than angels' dreams; the young ones grow and thrive; Madame has become a new creature; you are regaining your youth and spirits. So what have I to do, but eat, drink, and sleep, and think of what I have left behind, and what I may never see again. I tell you, June, I am moped to death. I welcome the thunder storms as a variety, I look upon the earthquakes as a desirable change in something, I watch the hurricanes with a sort of insane desire that they would blow us all away!" Mother.—"My darling! I am vexed for you. I Schillie.—"Well, I grant our troubles are equal, but I wish, I wish, oh how I wish to see my children once more. But here are the girls, and they must not see me thus. Upon my word Gatty is too stupid. She has grown almost as good as Sybil and Serena. I don't think she has been in a bit of mischief these three months." Mother.—"Don't make yourself unhappy about that, lest you find reason to eat your words, and have to sit in repentance once for some act against you. Now girls, don't you think this one of your best discoveries?" "Yes," said Sybil, "because during the rainy season we can come here every day and have a shower bath." "And," said Serena, "we can get fresh water every day without being half-drowned." "And," said Gatty, "we can sit here and look out for ships all day long." Mother.—"What, Gatty, are you tired of being here?" Gatty.—"Tired, tired does not express what I think about this place. There is nothing to do. Nothing frightens Sybil now, and Serena is so busy learning Spanish, she won't listen to a word I say in English. Oscar makes me talk of home and Wales until I am ready to cry my eyes out at my own descriptions. And the three little girls are all so wise and womanly that they seem to reprove me if I do anything the least like play or fun. I have not had a bit of fun since Felix tried to teach his monkey to fish, that he might lazily read himself. I am quite done up with dullness" (heaving a sort of groan). Mother.—"Indeed, I think you are badly used, especially since Madame has found out you really can be a good girl if you like." Gatty.—"I could be as mischievous as ever, only nobody cares for it or scolds me." Schillie.—"Mischievous! I should think so, you sphinx of plagues, I declare I am dripping, and you know I have a horror of being over damp." Gatty.—"It is quite clean water, little Mother, and it is but a little stream, and has not been running long to you." Schillie.—"But you know if it had not been for your great clumsy fingers making a channel, that stream would never have come to where I am sitting; and you did it on purpose you know, so that it should just dribble to my seat and not June's." Gatty.—"Yes, I know I did, little Mother, because you know I would never have done so to her." Schillie.—"Did any one ever hear such impudence. Now, I insist on it that you go back, and bring me some dry things. But it's no use, I must go myself. I am wet through and through. Well, you shall never catch me complaining again of Miss Gatty being stupidly good; and she knows so well I hate anything like damp." Gatty (with her demure face).—"Yes, little Mother, I know that so well, that I sent sufficient water to wet you thoroughly instead of damping you." Schillie went off muttering horrible imprecations. |