in which you might dimly
perceive fleecy spots of twilight, representing nothing; so that, if I
am right in supposing the portrait of your mother to be yours, I must
salute you as my superior. Is that your mother's breakfast? Or is it
only afternoon tea? If the first, do let me recommend to Mrs. Barrie to
add an egg to her ordinary. Which, if you please, I will ask her to eat
to the honour of her son, and I am sure she will live much longer for
it, to enjoy his fresh successes. I never in my life saw anything more
deliciously characteristic. I declare I can hear her speak. I wonder my
mother could resist the temptation of your proposed visit to Kirriemuir,
which it was like your kindness to propose. By the way, I was twice in
Kirriemuir, I believe in the year '71, when I was going on a visit to
Glenogil. It was Kirriemuir, was it not? I have a distinct recollection
of an inn at the end--I think the upper end--of an irregular open place
or square, in which I always see your characters evolve. But, indeed, I
did not pay much attention; being all bent upon my visit to a
shooting-box, where I should fish a real trout-stream, and I believe
preserved. I did, too, and it was a charming stream, clear as crystal,
without a trace of peat--a strange thing in Scotland--and alive with
trout; the name of it I cannot remember, it was something like the
Queen's River, and in some hazy way connected with memories of Mary
Queen of Scots. It formed an epoch in my life, being the end of all my
trout-fishing. I had always been accustomed to pause and very
laboriously to kill every fish as I took it. But in the Queen's River I
took so good a basket that I forgot these niceties; and when I sat down,
in a hard rain shower, under a bank, to take my sandwiches and sherry,
lo! and behold, there was the basketful of trouts still kicking in their
agony.

I had a very unpleasant conversation with my conscience. All that
afternoon I persevered in fishing, brought home my basket in triumph,
and sometime that night, "in the wee sma' hours ayont the twal," I
finally forswore the gentle craft of fishing. I dare say your local
knowledge may identify this historic river; I wish it could go farther
and identify also that particular Free kirk in which I sat and groaned
on Sunday. While my hand is in I must tell you a story. At that antique
epoch you must not fall into the vulgar error that I was myself ancient.
I was, on the contrary, very young, very green,