“Well, Katy,” said Harry, addressing a sprightly, rosy-cheeked maiden that he encountered inside, busy at some pottering woman’s work; “what do you think, now? Your father and mine are going fishing to-day. I left them talking it over, and arranging that they were to drive over in your father’s buggy, as our solitary horse is needed for other purpose.”
“I am glad of it, Harry; Mr. Hartley takes too little recreation, and father does so like a day on the Bay. He was speaking about it only yesterday.”
“But how odd that they should go alone; I wonder why your father does not take you, you like the Bay almost as well as he does.”
“Pretty nearly,” she replied with a laugh; “I love the breeze and the water, especially when we run outside and plunge into the monstrous waves of the ocean. It seems so fresh, and limitless, and powerful.”
“Yes, and you like to pull out the blue-fish; it is not all poetry, for to tell the truth, I have always felt convinced from your way of looking at them, that every time you caught a fish you thought of the pot and fancied how nice he would be on table.”
“Take care, sir, or the next time we go I will leave you to your own devices in the way of cooking. Do you remember when I found you trying to cook a big blue-fish on a long stick, over a huge hot fire, without any salt or butter?”
“But the old folks will be sure to fall out over politics or polemics, and come home in a dudgeon, as they have been near doing before this, your father is so fiery; I hope, for my future peace, his daughter does not take after him.”
“Now, Harry!” accompanied with a deep blush, was all the answer, and Katy was turning away, knowing instinctively how to punish her saucy lover, when Harry hastily continued:
“I think I have prevented that, however.”