t of laughter. "I knew
thee could not," he said. "No girl that ever lived could skip a stone!"

And then he threw another and another, and they stood enchanted as the
beautiful circles widened away from their centers and crossed each other
in ever-increasing complexity of curve.

Steven did his best to teach Pepeeta this very simple art; but after
many failures, she exclaimed:

"Oh dear, I shall never learn! I am nothing but a woman after all! Let
us hasten to the fishing pool, perhaps I shall do better there."

"Don't be discouraged. Thee can learn, if thee tries long enough!"
Steven said encouragingly, and led the way to a deep pool a few rods
farther up the river. It was a cool, sequestered, lovely spot. Great
trees overhung it, dark waters swirled swiftly but quietly round the
base of a great rock jutting out into it; little bubbles of froth glided
dreamily across it and burst on its edges; kingfishers dropped,
stone-like, into it from the limbs of a dead sycamore, and the low, deep
murmurs of the flood, as it hurried by, whispered inarticulately of
mysteries too deep for the mind of man to comprehend. Except for this
ceaseless murmur, silence brooded over the place, for the song-birds had
hidden themselves in the wood, and the two intruders upon the sacred
privacy, by an unconscious sense of fitness, spoke in whispers.

"Beautiful!" said Pepeeta.

"Hush! See there!" Steven exclaimed, in an undertone, and pointing to a
spot where a fish had broken the still surface as he leaped for a fly
and plunged back again into the depths.

His eye glowed, and his whole figure vibrated with excitement.

"And did your Uncle David used to bring you here?" Pepeeta asked.

"Well, I should say," he whispered. "He used to bring me here when I was
such a little fellow that he sometimes had to carry me on his back. He
was the greatest fisherman thee ever saw. I cannot fish so well myself!"

And with this ingenuous avowal, at which Pepeeta smiled appreciatively,
they laid their baskets down, and Steven began preparing the rude
tackle.

"Did thee ever bait a hook, Pepeeta?" he asked under his breath.

"I never did, but I think I can," she answered doubtfully.

And then he laughed again, not loudly, but in a fine chuckle which gave
vent to his joy and expressed his incredulity in a manner fitting such
solitude.

"If thee cannot skip a stone I should like to know what makes thee think
that thee can bait a hook," he said, sti