ow!"

Alice and Margaret appeared on the veranda.

"Good morning, Mr. Holcomb," said Alice, nodding pleasantly. "You
see," she added with her most captivating smile, "you must show me
this wonderful little pond my daughter has told me about, too. May I
come?"

Holcomb lifted his slouch hat from his head.

"Why, certainly, Mrs. Thayor. We can make it there and back by noon,"
and his eyes wandered over the trim and graceful figure accentuated so
charmingly by her short skirt.

Margaret had also followed the lines of the costume. "You must always
wear a short skirt, mother--it is most becoming."

"And so comfortable, my dear," added Alice nonchalantly as she placed
both hands about her flexible waist and half turned. It was her
stronghold, this figure--she would have been adorable in sackcloth and
ashes, she knew, but she preferred a tailor-made.

Soon the little party, lead by Holcomb, were seen picking their way
along the trail; Margaret keeping close to the young woodsman and
plying him with innumerable questions. She thought she had never
seen him look so handsome, debonair and manly. Then, too, his wide
knowledge of the woods was a delight to her. Little by little he
explained, as he followed the trail, those secrets of woodcraft not
found in books.

At length the trail ended in an opening at the edge of a small
pond--nameless, and round as a dollar, its circumference framed in
an unbroken line of timber. A few rods from this opening, where the
little party was now seated, a big trout plunged half out of the
water.

"He's after that miller," explained Holcomb. The others strained their
eyes, but they could see nothing but the widening rings where the
trout had disappeared. Again he rose out of a basin of moulten
turquoise like a flash of quicksilver. "The old fellow will get him
yet," remarked Billy; "the miller's wing is broken--he's lying flat on
the water."

"Your eyes are better than mine, Holcomb," declared Thayor.

"Take an old trout like that," explained Holcomb, "and he'll always
strike with his tail first; he broke that miller's wing the second
time he rose."

Alice and Margaret were straining their eyes to catch, if possible, a
glimpse of the unfortunate moth.

"I can't see him," confessed Margaret; "can you, mother?"

"My dear child, my eyes are not fitted with a microscope," Alice
laughed.

"There!" cried Holcomb, as the trout splashed still farther out on the
quiet pond. "He's got hi