He looked wofully threadbare and shabby,--a genteel sort of shabbiness
too,--shabbiness in black. There was humour in the corners of his lip;
and his hands, though they did not seem very clean--indeed his occupation
was not friendly to such niceties--were those of a man who had not known
manual labour. His face was pale and puffed, but the tip of the nose was
red. He did not seem as if the watery element was as familiar to himself
as to his Delilah, the perch.

"Such is Life!" recommenced the angler, in a moralizing tone, as he slid
his rod into its canvas case. "If a man knew what it was to fish all
one's life in a stream that has only one perch, to catch that one perch
nine times in all, and nine times to see it fall back into the water,
plump,--if a man knew what it was, why, then "--here the angler looked
over his shoulder full at Leonard--"why then, young sir, he would know
what human life is to vain ambition. Good-evening."

Away he went treading over the daisies and kingcups. Helen's eyes
followed him wistfully.

"What a strange person!" said Leonard, laughing.

"I think he is a very wise one," murmured Helen; and she came close up to
Leonard, and took his hand in both hers, as if she felt already that he
was in need of the Comforter,--the line broken, and the perch lost!




CHAPTER IX.