Walter replied apologetically, but his uncle turned away with a greater
appearance of anger than his placid features were wont to exhibit; and
Walter, cursing the innocent cause of his uncle's displeasure towards
him, took up his fishing-rod and went out alone, in no happy or
exhilarated mood.

It was waxing towards eve--an hour especially lovely in the month of
June, and not without reason favoured by the angler. Walter sauntered
across the rich and fragrant fields, and came soon into a sheltered
valley, through which the brooklet wound its shadowy way. Along the
margin the grass sprung up long and matted, and profuse with a thousand
weeds and flowers--the children of the teeming June. Here the ivy-leaved
bell-flower, and not far from it the common enchanter's night-shade, the
silver weed, and the water-aven; and by the hedges that now and then
neared the water, the guelder-rose, and the white briony, overrunning the
thicket with its emerald leaves and luxuriant flowers. And here and
there, silvering the bushes, the elder offered its snowy tribute to the
summer. All the insect youth were abroad, with their bright wings and
glancing motion; and from the lower depths of the bushes the blackbird
darted across, or higher and unseen the first cuckoo of the eve began its
continuous and mellow note. All this cheeriness and gloss of life, which
enamour us with the few bright days of the English summer, make the
poetry in an angler's life, and convert every idler at heart into a
moralist, and not a gloomy one, for the time.

Softened by the quiet beauty and voluptuousness around him, Walter's
thoughts assumed a more gentle dye, and he broke out into the old lines:

"Sweet day, so soft, so calm, so bright; The bridal of the earth and