“We took the time while you were asleep, on purpose,” said Tom, in his provoking fashion. “Nobody can do any fishing while girls are round.”
“Tom doesn’t deserve any for that speech,” said Mr. Hallam, smiling; “and I shall have to tell of him. It happens that I caught the fish while a certain young gentleman was dreaming.”
“O—oh, Tom! Well; but, Mr. Hallam, can’t we go fishing to-day?”
“To be sure, you can.”
“How long do you suppose you’ll stand it?—girls always give out in half an hour.”
“I’ll stand it as long as you will, sir!”
Tom whistled.
The trout were done to that indescribable luscious point of brown crispness, and the breakfast was, if possible, better than the supper.
After breakfast, they started on a fishing excursion down the gorge. It was a perfect day. It seemed to the girls that no winds from the valley were ever so sweet and pure as those winds, and no lowland sunshine so golden. The brook foamed and bubbled down its steep, rocky bed, splashed up jets of rainbow spray into the air, and plunged in miniature cascades over tiny gullies; the wet stones flashed in the light upon the banks, and tall daisies, peering over, painted shifting white outlines of themselves in the swelling current and the shallow pools; here and there, too, where the water was deep, the fish darted to the surface, and darted out of sight.
“Isn’t it beau—tiful!” cried Sarah.