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progress of events, and wondering when the difficulty of bait would put a stop to the preparations. A moment later the infant Ariadne laid down her tackle and sped like a wood nymph towards the house which was near the cherry trees where we had first seen her. The voices of her brothers, who must have been talking Committee Room No. 15 politics, came to us on the breeze. It was a beautiful afternoon, and with my wife's permission I leisurely lighted a pipe.

Ariadne soon returned, carrying a piece of bread in one hand and a loose newspaper parcel in the other, and, seating herself by the parasol, carefully fixed a cubic inch of bread upon the bent pin. I felt a great desire to come forward now and offer my advice and assistance, but the lady at my side was too anxious for the honour of her sex to allow it, so we two lay low while the girl cautiously began to fish.

I presume that the bread was soon washed off, for after a short interval the young fisher evidently made up her mind to the final struggle, drew out the line, and taking a small worm from the paper parcel, set her teeth, and impaled

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it on the pin. She looked like Cornelia devoting the last of the Gracchi to his country's service.

Between her and the pool she was fishing was a rock, beneath which the brook ran deep and brown, hiding indefinite possibilities of little fish, so round this cover she stealthily crawled, and dropped the worm softly into the water. It was a moment of supreme excitement, then-splash-she whisked out a small trout, high and dry. Like the ranks of Tuscany in the ballad, I could scarce forbear to cheer. She had actually caught a fish, and was softly contemplating it with radiant rapture, and indeed it was a remarkable feat.

At this point the boys reappeared upon the stage. Their patent tackle, town-made rods, and gut lines had caught nothing. One had broken the top of his rod, and the other his line; but as they could not agree to join their scattered forces for a combined attack, they had decided to "chuck it" and play cricket, so they came for their sister to field and longstop. Their faces were a study when they saw the trout. They hurried up, asked a hundred

eager questions, examined the worms and bread, and finally "forgave" their sister, and bore her off to play cricket on equal terms, and "have her innings like a man." Noble fellows! they little knew how my right foot was tingling.

And now, when I cannot get a rise with my best March Brown or Olive Dun, fishing “fine and far off," when difficulties seem insuperable,

or when I hear some glib young man talking about the natural inferiority of woman, my mind goes back to that dingy old parasol, the string, and the bent pin.

III.

How to catch Pike in the Thames.

"We'll try a better one by and by."

Sam Weller.

"Sweet Themmes, run softly till I end my song."

SPENSER.

IN the pursuit of my favourite pastime I had had a day's fishing on Virginia Water, and had found out what other brethren of the craft have discovered before, that ordinary mortals do not take very large fish there, except in story. I thought, however, that the Thames might afford me more sport, and decided to consult Anderson, who lives near us, and has the reputation of being a nineteenth-century Izaak Walton; so I called upon him one evening, and found him dozing over the Field in the little den in which tobacco is allowed at "The Pines." Anderson

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is one of those mysterious people who live, it is supposed, by journalism; but as he has never written anything over his own name, do not know whether he forms our political opinions, or does the acrostics for Johnson's Weakly. In consequence of this mystery, we regard his life as being something apart and esoteric, and make no further inquiry, any more than we do when a new resident's wife says her husband is "in the City." He may belong to the profession of Miss Shum's Husband, for all we care in Dipton.

Good-evening," I said politely, when my entry brought him broad awake. "I have called to ask you a few questions about Thames fishing. I have a mind to catch a pike somewhere on Saturday."

We shook hands. Anderson motioned me to a chair, pushed a jar of tobacco across the brass-topped Moorish table, and said—

"It is very good of you to come round and spare me half an hour from your Bluebooks and Private Bills. My wife's aunt is here, so I have a headache: she is a most

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