se everything was gone before he undertook their
business. However, he obtained reproach--as always seems to happen--for
those doings of his early days which led to their existence. Still, he
liked to make the best of things, and laughed, instead of arguing.

For a short time, therefore, Lancelot Carnaby seemed to have his own way
in this matter, as well as in so many others. As soon as spring weather
unbound the streams, and enlarged both the spots and the appetite of
trout (which mainly thrive together), Pet became seized, by his own
account, with insatiable love of angling. The beck of the gill, running
into the Lune, was alive, in those unpoaching days, with sweet little
trout of a very high breed, playful, mischievous, and indulging (while
they provoked) good hunger. These were trout who disdained to feed
basely on the ground when they could feed upward, ennobling almost every
gulp with a glimpse of the upper creation. Mrs. Carnaby loved these
"graceful creatures," as she always called them, when fried well;
and she thought it so good and so clever of her son to tempt her poor
appetite with them.

"Philippa, he knows--perhaps your mind is absent," she said, as she put
the fifth trout on her plate at breakfast one fine morning--"he feels
that these little creatures do me good, and to me it becomes a sacred
duty to endeavor to eat them."

"You seem to succeed very well, Eliza."

"Yes, dear, I manage to get on a little, from a sort of sporting feeling
that appeals to me. Before I begin to lift the skins of any of these
little darlings, I can see my dear boy standing over the torrent, with
his wonderful boldness, and bright eagle eyes--"

"To pull out a fish of an ounce and a half. Without any disrespect to
Pet, whose fishing apparel has cost 20 pounds, I believe that Jordas
catches every one of them."

Sad to say, this was even so; Lancelot tried once or twice, for some
five minutes at a time, throwing the fly as he threw a skittle-ball; but
finding no fish at once respond to his precipitance, down he cast the
rod, and left the rest of it to Jordas. But inasmuch as he brought
back fish whenever he went out fishing, and looked as brilliant
and picturesque as a salmon-fly, in his new costume, his mother was
delighted, and his aunt, being full of fresh troubles, paid small heed
to him.

For as soon as the roads became safe again, and an honest attorney could
enter "horse hire" in his bill without being too chival