Charitably attributing my peculiarities in this respect to my inland birth and education, the Dominie set about correcting the defects in the latter by the time we were fairly settled in our lake-side domicil. I was to learn how to row, to fish, and to swim-be inoculated for amphibiousness-and to the proposition, I, albeit with a secret shudder, at once constitutional and prescient, assented.

Rowing is excellent exercise, developing, as it does, the muscles of arms and chest, and forcing into lungs unused to full and healthful inflation, deep bracing draughts of fresh air, pumped into halfclosed and collapsing cells, and banishing unwholesome secretions. It is a graceful pastime, after it becomes pastime to the oarsman, and the spectator is accustomed to the exhibition of a human being moving upon the top of the water as the lobsters and crabs are doing at the bottom. It looks easy, too, and I took my seat for the trial lesson with the assurance of certain and speedy success that intensifies the smart of defeat in the souls of so many rash novices. Assuming a professional pose upon the seat, I grasped the handles, polished by the friction of other palms, and looked to my chief for orders. It was only to dip the wide oars into the water-well down-give them a vigorous pull and take them out again. Which manoeuvres I proceeded to execute with so good a will that, in a twinkle, the boat spun around like a drunken butterfly; I saw the blades flashing high, if not dry, above my head, and was only saved from a hard backward fall by the prompt interposition of my companion.

"You turned them as they went under!" he said, trying to speak distinctly between his fits of laughter. "See! so!" and the obedient barque darted forward under the impulse of one masterly stroke.

Again and yet again, upon that and succeeding days, did I address myself to the task of copying the motion that cost him no more effort, apparently, than did breathing, but with such lamentable results that my patient and sanguine tutor was, at last, fain to acquiesce in my de

spairing proposal to abandon the attempt. The boat, renowned among her kind for steadiness, behaved as tipsily at my last as at my initiatory lesson, and the possessed oars invariably flew up after my downward pull, as do empty spoons, sideling fans, and edgewise battledoors, and generally shed their surplus moisture in the faces of teacher and would-be learner, in their crazy evolution. It was clear that the joy of plying the feathered oarand the flightiest of feathers it was in my clutch-was never to be mine. Humbled, yet relieved, I subsided into the position of life-long passenger, and an inoffensive, if somewhat ignominious position in the stern or bows, as my weight was required to trim the boat.

But stupidity in the capacity of oarsman need not hinder me from learning to wield a fishing-rod with dexterity that should compel forgetfulness of my late idiotic essays. I stipulated, however, that I should accompany the fishermen as a looker-on before my maiden effort in this direction. There could be no such unattainable sleight-of-hand as had recently put me to confusion, in flinging a baited hook into the water, and when the fish tugged at one end of the line, in imitating his example at the other. Still, a practical hint or two would not be amiss. Experience had taught me that it was wise to find out how a thing was done before trying to do it.

"A lovely day" in the angler's parlance means gray, low-hanging heavens, a southerly breeze, moist and mild, just enough to warm the languid bosom of the pond and stir it into "a fair fishing ripple." Nobody complains, but the rather rejoices, if presently the thickening mists settle downward in gentle showers or a fine drizzle that still further blurs the surface, and obfuscates the wits of the finny race. The drizzle had commenced, and the wind was propitious, when the "Brownie "— our second daughter's namesake-quitted her cove for the channel. John, detailed for this "kind of promiscuous chore," officiated as rowsman. The observant novice, enveloped in water-proof cloak, dress and hood, already

beaded with wet, sat in the bow, and the Dominie in rubber cloth armor-coat-ofmail, greaves, boots and helmet-stood in the stern, pole in hand, toying affectionately with the slender cane, and waiting for something-but for what the novice could not determine. She hazarded a guess at length.

"Have you any angle-worms along? Didn't you forget them? Or, are you going to dig for them on the other side?" "We don't troll for pickerel with worms," looking over his shoulder, with a smile, compassionate of novice's ignorance. With that, he, with a dexterous wave of the pole, deposited in her lap an odd construction-a flattened teaspoon to which was attached a triple hook, a deceitful and a deadly-looking thing, she. forbore to handle save with the tips of her gloved fingers.

Novice. "And are there really dumb creatures so devoid of sense, or so avaricious as to bite at a bare hook? I thought such evidences of intolerable folly were confined to the human race."

Dominie (overlooking the latter clause, in his zeal to impart knowledge). "The pickerel is eminent among his fellows for sagacity. Next to the trout, he is the most difficult to catch, being both wild and wary. But he mistakes the gleam of the spoon for the shining scales of a smaller fish, and darts at it with an eagerness that transfixes him upon the barb of one hook-sometimes two. Genio C. Scott-a noted authority upon these subjects-affirms that fish are near-sighted, and sustains his position by citing such instances of blindness or recklessness as I have described."

John (with a smothered chuckle). "They're uncommon partial to spoon victuals, you see, ma'am."

The boat was, by this time, so far away from the reedy flats that no entangle ment need be feared, and the rower bent him to his task, heading the craft upstream, the glittering lure revolving just beneath the surface in our wake, until a silvery sparkle from below flashed up to meet it, and it disappeared. The easy line was taut-then strained, and the

Dominie set his jaws preparatory to tossing into the bottom of the boat a floundering, flapping, convulsed fish-his "silver skin laced with his blood," oozing from the wounded gill, above which protruded the hook.

"A three-pounder, at least!" quoth the Dominie, coolly, extracting the ugly tool, and back it whizzed into the trough left by the "Brownie."

Novice. Poor thing-see it pant and tremble! Can't you shorten its agony?" Dominie (not withdrawing his gaze from the swift spoon). "You must not gauge his sufferings by what you know of those of warm-blooded animals. What appears to you like anguish is probably a comparatively easy struggle-something like galvanic action, in fact."

An abrupt compression of the lips, and in came a second cold-blooded outcast, which evinced the same lively emotion— let us hope it was only overpowering amazement-that had, a minute before, animated his fellow, now feebly wagging his tail in less and less frequent galvanic spasms.

Sheltered from the rain by the bridge spanning the upper arm of the lake, sat a man in a boat, his eyes upon a green-andwhite buoy, no larger than a champagnebottle cork, hobbing among the ripples ten feet off. His gaze was vacantly steady, his countenance and attitude characterized by the stolid patience which is the prime requisite of a successful angler. He nodded silently to the Dominie's hearty, "Good morning."

"What luck?" queried the latter as we shot by.

"Quite some!" bovinely phlegmatic. Dominie (explanatory to novice). “He is still-fishing."

Novice (looking back). "So I see, and shows no intention of leaving off before night."

Dominie. "I mean that he is fishing with live bait, and sitting still-not trolling."

Novice (sententiously interrogative). "Worms?"

Dominie. "No, with small fish-minnows and shiners. They are in a perfo

successor) "tells me they took two hundred in one night, last week, of all kinds and sizes-catfish, eels, bass, perch, and more pickerel than anything else."

"Dear me!" said I, in innocent admiration. "That was excellent fishingwasn't it?"

"Excellent fishing! It was absolute and inexcusable butchery! vulgar and wholesale slaughter, for the sake of a few dollars! I should like to have the privilege of sentencing the depraved, unfeeling villains to three months' hard labor in the State's prison. And I cannot even hinder their piracy in my own cove!"

After this ebullition of righteous and professional wrath, I gave up the attempt to comprehend the exceeding nicety of the distinction between honorable and illegal methods of piscatorial destruction. I have an uncomfortable impression that I hail the appearance of a goodly supply of fair-sized fish at my door, less through appreciative sympathy in the exultation of him whose skill has procured them, than because they are acceptable additions to my larder. Bass and perch are savory pan-fish, while Sir Pickerel, fried -not dried to a cinder and swimming in fat, as erst he floated in the water-or broiled, and buttered while hot, or, best of all, baked in cream, as they dress salmon-trout in the Adirondacks, are tempting enough to excuse, to her who feels it, the ignoble satisfaction I have confessed. I was mightily comforted for my vulgar preference by a passage in "The Complete Angler," which I picked up, the other day, from the grass to which it had fallen from the Dominie's pocket. Says the pleasant master of the art, over the supper partaken of with his brother anglers: "Come, my friend Coridon-this trout looks lovely. It was twenty-two inches when it was taken; and the belly of it looked, some part of it yellow as a marygold, and part of it white as a lily, and yet, methinks it looks better in this sauce!"

We cannot boast ourselves of twentytwo inch trout, but our sporting calendar for the past month records the capture of

166 red-speckled brook fairies, beautiful to behold, before they were cooked and afterward, and, to the taste, of a delicate and sweet flavor, that cannot be imagined by those who have only made the acquaintance of fresh-water fish through the medium--and a foul one-of city markets. Already we have begun to collect treatises upon pisciculture, and we project digging in the fullness of time (and pocket) a trout pond to be supplied with water from one of four or five springs we have discovered on our land, and stocked by means of draughts made, at the proper season, upon neighboring streams. It is to be girdled by willows, birches, and certain fast-growing shrubs that shall soonest exclude the garish sunlight, and give to the pool the blackishgreen shadows the coy elves love; and there shall be no lack of love-vine, ferns and drooping grasses upon the brink, nor mosses and maiden's hair clinging to the rocky sides; neither of tangled vines, forming arbors, in the recesses of which our Dominie can test the truth of the ancient angler's assertion:

"Of recreation there is none So free as fishing is alone; All other pastimes do no less Than mind and body both possess: My hand alone my work can do, So, I can fish and study too." The unflattering fact that squeamishness shut me out from the enjoyment of this time-out-of-mind honorable recreation, as awkwardness had prevented me from learning how to row, being established, there yet remained the lazy luxury of gliding up and down our lakelet at my ease, another acting as motive power. I rather liked it-really-when the sun was not too bright, nor the wind too strong, nor the air from the water too chilly, until one memorable evening, two summers ago, we touched at the landing, on our return from a sail down to the falls, and a slight accident occurred which made a coward of me for life. Our flotilla consists of three boats-the "Gennesaret," a well-modeled and stylish craft, built to order by a "first-class boatcarpenter, sitting the water like a duck,

and much admired by strangers; the "Brownie," a brunette country sister of the former, a thought less janty, and clad in Spanish brown with a blue zone, instead of in white with red and green ribbons; and lastly the "Sunnybank," constructed under the Dominie's eye, after a pattern of his own devising, and painted the same color as the house.

She'll tip you out, soon as you put oar on to her, without you part your hair in the middle and be careful always to wink with both eyes at onst," said a rustic wag, shaking his head warningly over the slim cutter. "She's a fancy nutshell and tricky, as you'll find when you come to use her." The architect shows his respect for the prophecy by using no other when his excursions are made solus. But it was a party of pleasure to which I referred, and the spacious Gennesaret held a freight of women and children, all sitting still as for their lives-as feminine passengers are always enjoined to doyet reasonably alive to the pleasing influences of the summer weather, and the smooth motion of the barque through the waves. My seat was in the stern, but no sooner had the keel grated upon the beach than I arose to overlook the disembarkation of the babies, laying my hand carelessly as I did so upon a rail guarding the adjacent pier. In the hundredth part of a twinkle the treacherous duck slid from under my feet and I was in the water, without having the remotest idea of how I came there. The oarsman was on shore, making fast the chain of the boat; but he turned, alarmed by the chorus of infantine shrieks, echoed shrilly from the environing hills, while one brave young girl-dear to me as are my own offspring-uttered not a sound, but leaning over the side with a blanched and rigid face I can never forget, seized my hand and held it tight. Had I struggled, she would have suffered herself to be drawn overboard before she would have let go; but I had caught, in falling, at a lower bar of the railing, which the Dominie says did all the harm, and hung there, my head above water. Secure of

not drowning until this gave way, I was conscious of but two things-I was growing heavier with terrific rapidity, as my clothing became soaked, and the children must be removed instantly from that abominable and deceitful boat.

"It isn't deep enough to drown you! Let go! You will feel the bottom and can walk on shore," commanded the masculine element of our otherwise demoralized band.

The involuntary mermaid is an exemplar of obedience-upon occasions-but the exigencies of this seemed to her to warrant the terse, if undignified, rejoinder to her superior officer:

"Not if I know it!"

Like the magnanimous man he is, he acknowledged the propriety of the refusal, on the morrow, when we ascertained by actual measurement the depth of the lake at that spot to be eight feet.

Seriously, the instability of water is a fearful thing. If any one has an ungratified curiosity on the subject, and would know further of it for himself, as well as of the avidity with which it swallows its victim; the remorseless gravitation that surrounds him, like a myriad greedy imps, pulling upon every square inch of his sodden clothing-even tugging at his feet— he can be satisfied, and more than satisfied, unless he can swim, by standing up in the safest round-keeled, duck-breasted boat he can find, and inclining a hair's breadth from the perpendicular. If he do not forever after speak in tones of awe and very distant respect, of water in large quantities as the most ravenous and pitiless force of nature, his nerves are stronger than mine and his courage of stancher stuff.

The sky is one blush of color, this afternoon. The half-disk of the sun visible above the mountain-ridge, is a quiver of golden arrows tipped with fire. The bedazzled eyes that meet these see vivid scarlet fruit strung thickly upon the boughs of oak, chestnut, and cedar, and the waters glow redly as did those in the valley of Edom when the rising sun showed them to the host of Moab.