down towards the water, her whole
body saturated with the perfume from the fringed milkweed. Then she
raised her delicate nose a trifle, sniffing at the air, which suddenly
became faintly spiced with tobacco smoke.

Where did the smoke come from? She turned instinctively. On a rock
up-stream stood young Crawford, smoking peacefully, and casting a white
fly into the dusky water. Swish! the silk line whistled out into the
dusk.

After a few moments' casting, she saw him step ashore and saunter
towards the bridge, where she was standing; then his step jarred the
structure and he came up, cap in one hand, rod in the other.

"I thought perhaps you might like to try a cast," he said, pleasantly.
"There's a good-sized fish in the pool above; I raised him twice. He'll
scale close to five pounds, I fancy."

"Thank you," said Miss Castle; "that is very generous of you, because
you are deliberately sacrificing the club loving-cup if I catch that
fish."

He said, laughing: "I've held the cup before. Try it, Miss Castle; that
is a five-pound fish, and the record this spring is four and a half."

She took the rod; he went first and she held out her hand so that he
could steady her across the stones and out into the dusk.

"My skirts are soaked with the dew, anyway," she said. "I don't mind a
wetting."

He unslung his landing-net and waited ready; she sent the line whirling
into the darkness.

"To the right," he said.

For ten minutes she stood there casting in silence. Once a splash in
the shadows set his nerves quivering, but it was only a muskrat.

"By-the-way," she said, quietly, over her shoulder, "I know why you and
I have met here."

And as Crawford said nothing she reeled in her line, and held out her
hand to him as a signal that she wished to come ashore.

He aided her, taking the rod and guiding her carefully across the dusky
stepping-stones to the bank.

She shook out her damp skirts, then raised her face, which had grown a
trifle pale.

"I will marry you, Mr. Crawford," she said, bravely,--"and I hope you
will make me love you. Mr. Garcide wishes it.... I understand ... that
you wish it. You must not feel embarrassed, ... nor let me feel
embarrassed. Come and talk it over. Shall we?"

There was a rustic seat on the river-bank; she sat down in one corner.

His face was in shadow; he had dropped his rod and landing-net abruptly.
And now he took an uncertain step towards her and sat down at her side.