scrabble Point while she sat in the canoe reading a novel, looking
up with mild and pleasant interest when he caught a larger fish than
usual, as an older and wiser person looks at a child playing some
innocent game. Those days of a divided interest between man and wife
were gone. She was now fully converted, and more. Beekman and Cornelia
were one; and she was the one.

The last time I saw the De Peysters he was following her along the
Beaverkill, carrying a landing-net and a basket, but no rod. She paused
for a moment to exchange greetings, and then strode on down the stream.
He lingered for a few minutes longer to light a pipe.

"Well, old man," I said, "you certainly have succeeded in making an
angler of Mrs. De Peyster."

"Yes, indeed," he answered,--"have n't I?" Then he continued, after a
few thoughtful puffs of smoke, "Do you know, I 'm not quite so sure as I
used to be that fishing is the best of all sports. I sometimes think of
giving it up and going in for croquet."

FISHING IN BOOKS

"SIMPSON.--Have you ever seen any American books on angling,
Fisher?"

"FISHER.--No, I do not think there are any published.
Brother Jonathan is not yet sufficiently civilized to
produce anything original on the gentle art. There is good
trout-fishing in America, and the streams, which are all
free, are much less fished than in our Island, 'from the
small number of gentlemen,' as an American writer says, 'who
are at leisure to give their time to it.'"

--WILLIAM ANDREW CHATTO: The Angler's Souvenir (London,
1835).

That wise man and accomplished scholar, Sir Henry Wotton, the friend of
Izaak Walton and ambassador of King James I to the republic of Venice,
was accustomed to say that "he would rather live five May months than
forty Decembers." The reason for this preference was no secret to those
who knew him. It had nothing to do with British or Venetian politics. It
was simply because December, with all its domestic joys, is practically
a dead month in the angler's calendar.

His occupation is gone. The better sort of fish are out of season. The
trout are lean and haggard: it is no trick to catch them and no treat to
eat them. The salmon, all except the silly kelts, have run out to sea,
and the place of their habitation no man knoweth. There is nothing
for the angler to do but wait for the return of spring, and meanwhile
encourage and sustain his patienc