hat showery month to his affairs in the city,
diversified with a few afternoons of trout-fishing on Long Island: for
like all the members of the Petrine Club he was a sincere angler. It
was during this period that Ethel took up, in her daily correspondence
with him, the question of the cruelty of angling. She was not yet quite
clear in her mind upon the subject, but she wanted him to consider it
seriously; and she quoted Byron, Leigh Hunt, and Aurora W. Chime's
book, "The Inwardness of the Outward." Chichester promised to consider
it.

The second week in May they spent together at a house-party near
Portland, Maine; and he tried the landlocked salmon in Sebago Lake,
twice. Ethel continued the subject of the cruelty of angling, in
conversation, and illuminated her increasing conviction with references
to the Reverend Wilbur Short's "Tales of Strange Things in Woods and
Waters," and "Songs of the Scaly," by Alonzo Sweetbread.

"You would not allow any difference of thought or feeling to mar the
perfect chord of our love, would you, Bolton dear?" she asked.

"Of course not," said Bolton.

"Then promise me faithfully that you will think about this pastime
which gives so much anguish to the innocent fish--think about it very,
very seriously."

"I do. I have to. It costs me seven or eight hundred a year."

"But you must think in a different way. Put yourself in the place of
the fish."

"I did once. Fellow with a rod and line tried to land me in the tank at
the gymnasium. Lots of fun. Never had a better fight."

"But suppose you had a hook in your mouth. How would you like that?"

"Better than the dentist's chair, I'm sure. I spent three afternoons
there, last month."

"You're absurd," said Ethel, "you're perverse. Don't hold your chin up
in that aggravating way. I don't believe--you--love----"

The rest of the conversation followed the usual course, which may be
supplied from the pages of any of the fifteen-cent magazines, and ended
with a promise on the part of Chichester that he would think again, and
very, very seriously.

Meantime, you will understand, the preparations for the wedding had
been going forward, in the regular way, modified, however, in one most
important particular by Ethel Asham's passion for romantic originality.
She insisted that the day and the place should be left entirely to her.
She did not wish to have the ordinary, commonplace, fashionable wedding
performance. She wanted something rea