ame-flower in her pale-pink dress; while Bubble, on a stool beside her,
rested his arm on his sister's knee, and looked the very embodiment of
content. A tiny fire was crackling on the hearth, even though it was
still August; for Miss Wealthy thought the evening mist from the river
was dangerous, and dried her air as carefully as she did her linen. Dr.
Johnson was curled on his hassock beside the fire; Benny was safe in
bed.

"And now, Bubble," said Hildegarde, with a little sigh of satisfaction
as she looked around and thought how cosey and pleasant it all was, "now
you shall tell us about your fishing excursion."

"Well," said Bubble, nothing loath, "it was this way, you see. When I
came back from the Farm, leaving Jock there, I found the doctor in his
study, and the whole room full of rods and lines and reels, and all
kinds of truck; and he was playing with the queerest things I ever saw
in my life,--bits of feather and wool, and I don't know what not, with
hooks in them. When he called me to come and look at his flies I was all
up a tree, and didn't know what he was talking about; but he told me
about 'em, and showed me, and then says he, 'I'm going a-fishing,
Bubble, and I'm going to take you, if you want to go.' Well, I didn't
leave much doubt in his mind about _that_. Fishing! Well, _you_ know,
Pinkie, there's nothing like it, after all. So we started next morning,
Doctor and I, and three other fel--I mean gentlemen. Two of 'em was
doctors, and the third was a funny little man, not much bigger'n me. I
wish 't you could ha' seen us start! Truck? Well, I should--say so!
Rods, and baskets, and bait-boxes, and rugs, and pillows, and canned
things, and camp-stools, and tents, and a cooking-stove, and a barrel of
beer, and--"

"How much of this are you making up, young man?" inquired Hildegarde,
calmly; while Miss Wealthy paused in her knitting, and looked over her
spectacles at Bubble in mild amazement.

"Not one word, Miss Hilda!" replied the boy, earnestly. "Sure as you're
sitting there, we did start with all them--_those_ things. Doctor, of
course, knew 't was all nonsense, and he kept telling the others so; but
they was bound to have 'em; and the little man, he wouldn't be separated
from that beer-barrel, not for gold. However, it all turned out right.
We were bound for Tapsco stream, you see; and when we came to the end
of the railroad, we hired a sledge and a yoke of oxen, and started for
the woods. Seven mi