'Oh! a bite!' she screamed gladly.
I saw her float bob under, and started up, rushed to her, and taught her how to strike and play it, though it turned out when landed to be nothing but a tiny barbel: but she was in ecstasies, holding it on her palm, murmuring her fond coo.
She re-baited, and we lay again. I said:
'But what a life: no exit, no light, no prospect, no hope—'
'Plenty of hope!' says she.
'Good Heavens! hope of what?'
'I knew vely well that something was lipening over the cellar, or under, or alound it, and would come to pass at a certain fixed hour, and that I should see it, and feel it, and it would be vely nice.'
'Ah, well, you had to wait for it, at any rate. Didn't those twenty years seem long?'
'No—at least sometimes—not often. I was always so occupied.'
'Occupied in doing what?'