'The best thing about fishing,' said Stuart, after serving the other ladies and coming back to her, 'is that it gives one an appetite.'
'Oh, then you have not studied the brook.'
'Certainly not,' said he, laughing, 'or only as one studies a dictionary—to see what one can get out of it. Please tell me, what did you?'
'New thoughts,' she said. 'And new fancies. And shadows, and colours. I forgot all about the fish sometimes.'
'You are a philosopher?' said Stuart, inquisitively.
'Probably. Don't I look like one?'
He laughed again, with an unequivocal compliment in his bright eyes. He was a handsome fellow, and a gentleman from head to foot. So far at least as manners can make it.
'I do not judge from appearances. Do you care to know what I judge from?'
'Your judgment cannot have been worth much just now,' said Wych Hazel, shaking her head. 'But I am willing to hear what led it astray.'
'What led it,—not astray,—was your calm declining of all but true words of service.'