field sports, and to learn something, especially, of the angler's
art. Still following the stranger, with my eyes intently fixed on
every movement of his rod and line, and with not so much as a
chance fragment of my attention to spare for the rough path along
which I was walking, I stepped by chance on the loose overhanging
earth at the edge of the bank, and fell into the stream in an
instant.

The distance was trifling, the water was shallow, the bed of the
river was (fortunately for me) of sand. Beyond the fright and the
wetting I had nothing to complain of. In a few moments I was out
of the water and up again, very much ashamed of myself, on the
firm ground. Short as the interval was, it proved long enough to
favor the escape of the fish. The angler had heard my first
instinctive cry of alarm, had turned, and had thrown aside his
rod to help me. We confronted each other for the first time, I on
the bank and he in the shallow water below. Our eyes encountered,
and I verily believe our hearts encountered at the same moment.
This I know for certain, we forgot our breeding as lady and
gentleman: we looked at each other in barbarous silence.

I was the first to recover myself. What did I say to him?

I said something about my not being hurt, and then something
more, urging him to run back and try if he might not yet recover
the fish.

He went back unwillingly. He returned to me--of course without
the fish. Knowing how bitterly disappointed my uncle would have
been in his place, I apologized very earnestly. In my eagerness