fragments by the eddy and strife of waves, fresh from their leap down
the neighbouring waterfall. His eyes rested on the house and the
garden lawn in the front. The upper windows were open. "I wonder
which is hers," he said to himself. At last he caught a glimpse of
the gardener, bending over a flower border with his watering-pot, and
then moving slowly through the little shrubbery, no doubt to his own
cottage. Now the lawn was solitary, save that a couple of thrushes
dropped suddenly on the sward.

"Good evening, sir," said a voice. "A capital spot for trout this."

Kenelm turned his head, and beheld on the footpath, just behind him, a
respectable elderly man, apparently of the class of a small retail
tradesman, with a fishing-rod in his hand and a basket belted to his
side.

"For trout," replied Kenelm; "I dare say. A strangely attractive spot
indeed."

"Are you an angler, sir, if I may make bold to inquire?" asked the
elderly man, somewhat perhaps puzzled as to the rank of the stranger;
noticing, on the one hand, his dress and his mien, on the other, slung
to his shoulders, the worn and shabby knapsack which Kenelm had
carried, at home and abroad, the preceding year.

"Ay, I am an angler."

"Then this is the best place in the whole stream. Look, sir, there is
Izaak Walton's summer-house; and further down you see that white,
neat-looking house. Well, that is my house, sir, and I have an