Really, ma'am - I'm extremely sorry you 're too good, -so very awkward-quite distressing-I'm exceedingly obliged I'm sure sure- very warm, indeed," and seizing the top-joint he attempted to retreat with it, but he was not to escape so easily.

Stop, sir!" cried one of the sweetest voices in the world, "the lines are entangled."

"Pray don't mention it," said the agitated Mr. Chubb, vainly fumbling in the wrong waistcoat-pocket for his penknife. "I'll cut it, ma'am - I'll bite it off."

"O, pray don't!" exclaimed the lady; "it would be a sin and a shame to spoil such a beautiful line. Pray, what do you call it?”

What an unlucky question. For the whole world Mr. Chubb would not have named the material — which he at last contrived to describe as 66 a very fine sort of fiddlestring."

“Õ, I understand," said the Lady. "How fine it is — and yet how strong. What a pity it is in such a tangle! But I think with a little time and patience I can unravel it !"

"Really, ma'am, I'm quite ashamed so much trouble allow me, ma'am." And the little Bachelor climbed up into his elbow-chair, where he stood tottering with agitation, and as red in the face, and as hot all over, as a boiling lobster.

"I think, sir,” suggested the Lady, "if you would just have the goodness to hold these loops open while I pass the other line through them

"Yes, ma'am, yes exactly by all means " and he endeavored to follow her instructions, by plunging the short, thick fingers of each hand into the hank; the Lady meanwhile poking her float, like a shuttle, up and down, to and fro, through the intricacies of the tangled lines.

"Bless my soul!" thought Mr. Chubb, "what a singular situation! A lady I never saw before-a perfect stranger! and here I am face to face with her across a hedge · with our fingers twisting in and out of the same line, as if we were playing at cat's-cradle!"

CHAPTER IV.

"HEYDAY! It is a long job!" exclaimed the Lady, with a gentle sigh.

"It is indeed, ma'am," said Mr. Chubb, with a puff of breath as if he had been holding it the whole time of the operation.

"My fingers quite ache," said the Lady. "I'm sure-I'm very sorry I'm very sorry-I beg them a thousand pardons," said Mr. Chubb, with a bow to the hand before him. And what a hand it was! So white and so plump, with little dimples on the knuckles, and then such long taper fingers, and filbert-like nails.

"Are you fond of fishing, sir?" asked the Lady, with a full look in his face for the answer.

"O, very, ma'am

very partial, indeed!"

"So am I, sir. It's a taste derived, I believe, from my reading."

"Then mayhap, ma'am," said Mr. Chubb, his voice quavering at his own boldness, "if it is n't too great a liberty — you have read the Complete Angler'?"

6

“What, Izaak Walton's? O, I dote on it! The nice, dear old man! So pious, and so sentimental! ”

"Certainly, ma'am as you observe - and so uncommonly skilful." Such sweet green

"O, and so natural! and so rural! meadows, with honeysuckle hedges; and the birds, and the innocent lambs, and the cows, and that pretty song of the milk-maid's!"

"Yes, ma'am, yes," said Mr. Chubb, rather hastily, as if afraid she would quote it; and blushing up to his crown, as though she had actually invited him to "live with her and be her love."

"There was an answer written to it, I believe, by Sir Walter Raleigh?"

"There was, ma'am or Sir Walter Scott - I really forget which," stammered the bewildered Bachelor, with whom the present tense had completely obliterated the past. As to the future, nothing it might produce would surprise him.

66

Now, then, sir, we will try again!" And the Lady

sumed her task, in which Mr. Chubb assisted her so effectually, that at length one line obtained its liberty, and by a spring so sudden, as to excite a faint scream.

"Gracious powers!" exclaimed the horrified little man, almost falling from his chair, and clasping his hands.

it

"I thought the hook was in my eye,” said the Lady; "but is only in my hair." From which she forthwith endeavored to disentangle it, but with so little success, that in common politeness Mr. Chubb felt bound to tender his assistance. It was gratefully accepted; and in a moment the most bashful of bachelors found himself in a more singular position than ever namely, with his short thick fingers entwined with a braid of the glossiest, finest, softest auburn hair that ever grew on a female head.

"Bless my soul and body!" said Mr. Chubb to himself; "the job with the gut and silk lines was nothing to this!"

CHAPTER V.

THAT wearisome hook! It clung to the tress in which it had fastened itself with lover-like pertinacity! In the mean time the Lady, to favor the operation, necessarily inclined her head a little downwards and sideways, so that when she looked at Mr. Chubb, she was obliged to glance at him from the corners of her eyes as coquettish a position as female artifice, instead of accident, could have produced. Nothing, indeed, could be more bewitching! Nothing so disconcerting! It was a wonder the short thick fingers ever brought their task to an end, they fumbled so abominably the poor man forgot what he was about so frequently! At last the soft glossy braid, sadly disarranged, dropped again on the fair smooth cheek.

"Is the hook out?" asked the Lady.

"It is, ma'am thank God!" replied the little Bachelor, with extraordinary emphasis and fervor; but the next moment making a grimace widely at variance with the implied pleasure.

Why, it's in your own thumb!" screamed the Lady, forgetting in her fright that it was a strange gentleman's hand she caught hold of so unceremoniously.

"It's nothing, ma'am -only-bless my soul,

don't be alarmed; - nothing at all how very ridiculous!”

“But it must hurt you, sir.”

"Not at all, ma'am quite the reverse. I don't feel it I don't indeed! - Merely through the skin, ma'am, — and if I could only get at my penknife-"

"Where is it, sir?"

"Stop, ma'am here I've got it," said Mr. Chubb, his heart beating violently at the mere idea of the long taper fingers in his left waistcoat-pocket-"But unluckily it's my right hand!"

"How very distressing!" exclaimed the lady; "and all through extricating me!"

"Don't mention it, ma'am, pray don't welcome."

you're perfectly

"If I thought," said the lady, "that it was only through the skin — I had once to cut one out for poor dear Mr. Hooker," and she averted her head as if to hide a tear.

"She's a widow, then!" thought Mr. Chubb to himself. "But what does that signify to me - and as to her cutting out the hook, it's a mere act of common charity."

And so, no doubt, it was; for no sooner was the operation performed, than dropping his hand as if it had been a stone, or a brick, or a lump of clay, she restored the penknife, and cutting short his acknowledgments with a grave "Good morning, sir," skipped down from her chair, and walked off, rod in hand, to her house.

Mr. Chubb watched her till she disappeared, and then getting down from his own chair, took a seat in it, and fell into a reverie, from which he was only roused by putting his thumb and finger into the wrong box, and feeling a pinch of gentles, instead of snuff.

CHAPTER VI.

THE next day Mr. Chubb angled as usual; but with abated pleasure. His fishery had been disturbed; his solitude invaded he was no longer Walton and Zimmerman rolled into one. From certain prophetic misgivings he had even abandoned the costume of the craft, and appeared in a dress more suited to a public dinner than his private recreation a blue coat and black kerseymere trousers instead of the fustian jacket, shorts, and leathern gaiters.

The weather was still propitious, but he could neither confine his eye to his quill nor his thoughts to the pastime. Every moment he expected to hear the splash of the great green and white float, and to see it come sailing into his swim. But he watched and listened in vain. Nothing drifted down with the current but small sticks and straws or a stray weed, nothing disturbed the calm surface of the river, except the bleak, occasionally rising at a fly. A furtive glance assured him that nobody was looking at him over the evergreen fence—for that day, at least, he had the fishery all to himself, and he was beginning, heart and soul, to enjoy the sport, when, from up the stream, he heard a startling plunge, enough to frighten all the fish up to London or down to Ware! The flop of the great green and white float was a whisper to it but before he could frame a guess at the cause, a ball of something, as big as his own head, plumped into his swim, with a splash that sent up the water into his very face! The next moment a sweet low voice called to him by his name.

It was the Widow! He knew it without turning his head. By a sort of mental clairvoyance he saw her distinctly looking at him, with her soft liquid hazel eyes, over the privet hedge. He immediately fixed his gaze more resolutely on his float, and determined to be stone-deaf. But the manœuvre was of no avail. Another ball flew bomb-like through the air, and narrowly missing his rod, dashed-saluting him with a fresh sprinkle into the river!

"Bless my soul," thought Mr. Chubb, carefully laying his rod across the arms of his elbow-chair, "when shall I get any fishing!"

"A fine morning, Mr. Chubb."

"Very, ma'am very, indeed-quite remarkable," stammered Mr. Chubb, bowing as he spoke, plucking off his hat, and taking two or three unsteady steps towards the fence.

'My gardener has made me some ground bait, Mr. Chubb, and I told him to throw the surplus towards your part of the river."

"You're very good, ma'am, I'm vastly obliged, I'm sure,” said the little Bachelor, quite overwhelmed by the kindness, and wiping his face with his silk handkerchief, as if it