of a true fisherman. A
few yards further up there jutted into the water that fragment of wall
on which stood the post, now quite rotten, to which Angela had bound
herself on the day of the great storm. At his feet, too, the
foundations of another wall ran out for some distance into the lake,
being, doubtless, the underpinning of an ancient boathouse, but this
did not rise out of the water, but stopped within six inches of the
surface. Between these two walls lay a very deep pool.

"Just the place for a heavy fish," reflected Arthur, and, even as he
thought it, he saw a five-pound carp rise nearly to the surface, in
order to clear the obstruction of the wall, and sink silently into the
depths.

Retiring carefully to one of two quaintly carven stone blocks placed
at the foot of the oak-tree, on which, doubtless, many a monk had sat
in meditation, he set himself to get his fishing-gear together.
Presently, however, struck by the beauty of the spot and its quiet,
only broken by the songs of many nesting birds, he stopped a while to
look around him. Above his head the branches of a great oak, now
clothing themselves with the most vivid green, formed a dome-like
roof, beneath the shade of which grew the softest moss, starred here
and there with primroses and violets. Outside the circle of its shadow
the brushwood of mingled hazel and ash-stubs rose thick and high,
ringing-in the little spot as with a wall, except where its depths
were pierced by the passage of a long green lane of limes that, unlike
the shrubberies, appeared to be kept in careful order, and of which
the arching boughs formed a perfect leafy tunnel. Before him lay the
lake where the long morning lights quivered and danced, as its calm
was now and again ruffled by a gentle breeze. The whole scene had a
lovely and peaceful look, and, gazing on it, Arthur fell into a
reverie.

Sitting thus dreamily, his face looked at its best, its expression of
gentle thoughtfulness giving it an attraction beyond what it was
entitled to, judged purely from a sculptor's point of view. It was an
intellectual face, a face that gave signs of great mental
possibilities, but for all that a little weak about the mouth. The
brow indicated some degree of power, and the mouth and eyes no small
capacities for affection and all sorts of human sympathy and kindness.
These last, in varying lights, could change as often as the English
climate; their groundwork, however, was blue, and they