d, adjusting his fly, and then looking
with a smile at her. "There is no way that fish taste so good. I used
to do that, you see, in the hills round about the Academy; and I know
all about it."

"We could make a fire," said Diana; "but we have no gridiron here."

"I had no gridiron there. Couldn't have carried a gridiron in my pocket
if I had had one. Here's another"--

"You had not a gridiron, of course."

"Nor a pocket either."

"But did you eat the trout all alone? without bread, I mean, or
anything?"

"No; we took bread and salt, and pepper and butter, and a few such
things. There were generally a lot of us; or if only two or three we
could manage that. The butter was the worst thing to accomplish--Here's
another!"

"Such beauties!" said Diana. "Well, Mr. Knowlton, if you get _too_
hungry, we'll cook you one at home, you know."

"Will you?" said he. "I wish we had salt and bread here! I should like
to show you how wood cookery goes, though. But I'll tell you! we'll get
Mrs. Starling to let us have it out in the meadow--that won't be bad."

Diana thought of her mother's utter astonishment and disapprobation at
such a proposal; and there was silence again for a few minutes, while
the line hung motionless over the pool, and Diana's eyes watched it
movelessly, and the liquid sweetness of the water's talk with the
stones was heard,--as one hears things when the senses are strung to
double keenness. Diana heard it, at least, and listened to something in
it she had never perceived before; something not only sweet and liquid
and musical, but in some odd sense admonitory. What did it say? Diana
hardly questioned, but yet she heard,--"My peace never changes. My song
never dies. Listen, or not listen, it is all the same. You may be in
twenty moods in a year. In my depth of content I flow on for ever."

A slight rustling of leaves, a slight crackling of stems or branches,
brought the eyes of both watchers in another direction; and before they
could hear a footfall, they saw, above them on the course of the brook,
a figure of a man coming towards them, and Diana knew it was the
minister. Swiftly and lightly he came swinging himself along, bounding
over obstacles, with a sure foot and a strong hand; till presently he
stood beside them. Just then Mr. Knowlton's line was swung up with
another trout. Diana introduced the gentlemen to each other.

"Fishing?" said the minister.

"We have got all there are in this plac