moving about as beautiful as a picture.

Everything to eat and drink, though it was somewhat different to what we
had had in London, was better than good, but the old man eyed rather
sulkily the chief dish on the table, on which lay a leash of fine perch,
and said:

"H'm, perch! I am sorry we can't do better for you, guests. The time
was when we might have had a good piece of salmon up from London for you;
but the times have grown mean and petty."

"Yes, but you might have had it now," said the girl, giggling, "if you
had known that they were coming."

"It's our fault for not bringing it with us, neighbours," said Dick, good-
humouredly. "But if the times have grown petty, at any rate the perch
haven't; that fellow in the middle there must have weighed a good two
pounds when he was showing his dark stripes and red fins to the minnows
yonder. And as to the salmon, why, neighbour, my friend here, who comes
from the outlands, was quite surprised yesterday morning when I told him
we had plenty of salmon at Hammersmith. I am sure I have heard nothing
of the times worsening."

He looked a little uncomfortable. And the old man, turning to me, said
very courteously:

"Well, sir, I am happy to see a man from over the water; but I really
must appeal to you to say whether on the whole you are not better off in
your country; where I suppose, from what our guest says, you are brisker
and more alive, because you have not wholly got rid of competition. You
see, I have read not a few books of the past days, and certainly _they_
are much more alive than those which are written now; and good sound
unlimited competition was the condition under which they were written,--if
we didn't know that from the record of history, we should know it from
the books themselves. There is a spirit of adventure in them, and signs
of a capacity to extract good out of evil which our literature quite
lacks now; and I cannot help thinking that our moralists and historians
exaggerate hugely the unhappiness of the past days, in which such
splendid works of imagination and intellect were produced."

Clara listened to him with restless eyes, as if she were excited and
pleased; Dick knitted his brow and looked still more uncomfortable, but
said nothing. Indeed, the old man gradually, as he warmed to his
subject, dropped his sneering manner, and both spoke and looked very
seriously. But the girl broke out before I could deliver myself of the
answe