bowers in the air like that in which the anglers are seated in the
picture entitled 'The Farewell;' and had imagined myself in a tall hat
and a stiff-bustled dress cooking fish for my favourite brothers after
the recipes in Walton and Cotton's 'Complete Angler.'

"They came back with disappointment on their faces. They had not got
a house, but my mother had got a headache, and we sat down to tea a
dispirited party.

"It is sometimes fortunate as well as remarkable, how soon everybody
knows everything about everybody else, especially in a small town. As
the tea-things went downstairs, our landlord came up to help us in our
difficulty. Had the gentleman succeeded in obtaining a house? If none
of the new lot suited him, the landlord believed that one or more of
older date were to let near the river. It was not the fashionable
quarter, but there had been well-to-do people and some good
substantial residences there.

"Our hopes rose again, and the idea of an old and substantial
residence in an unfashionable quarter was so much more favourable to
nursery interests than the smart gimcrack houses at which we had been
looking, that I should have been anxious to explore that part of the
town to which he directed us, even if it had not possessed a charm
that was now pre-eminent in my eyes. It was near the river.

"My mother was too much tired to attempt further investigations, but I
had completely recovered from my fatigues, and was allowed to go with
my father on the new search. He and I were very good company, despite
the difference in age between us. We were never in each other's way,
and whether we chatted or did not speak, we were happy together, and