"Did Elise Lesage tell you I wrote that letter?" But Marie's fear had left her. She smiled up at her lover, once more his own arch, bright Marie: "How dared you believe her, Léon? I have a great mind not to tell you the truth."
But Léon Roussel was satisfied, for while she spoke his arm had folded round her again, and he was much too happy to trouble himself about Nicolas Marais.
Léon and Marie are to be married in November, and Mam'selle Lesage has been so indisposed that for two consecutive Saturdays she has sent a deputy to collect sous in the market of Aubette.
Katharine S. Macquoid.
SALMON FISHING IN CANADA.
Fifty years ago, when the manners and habits of the Americans were very different from what they now are, there lived in Boston two gentlemen so far in advance of their age as to devote much time to shooting and fishing. These pursuits were denounced by the Puritans and their descendants as a sinful waste of time, and there is a letter extant from one of the early Massachusetts governors, in which he reproaches himself for indulging in "fowling," the rather because, as he confesses, he failed to get any game. These two bold Bostonians were wont to go to Scotland for salmon-fishing, having a belief that the salmon of the American rivers were too uncultivated in their taste to rise at a fly. However this may have been in 1820, the salmon of the Dominion are to-day as open to the attractions of a well-tied combination of feathers and pig's-wool, as those of the rivers of Norway or Scotland; and as, under the protection which the Canadian rivers now enjoy, the fish are becoming plentiful, sport is offered in the numerous streams which flow into the St. Lawrence, the Bays of Chaleur and Miramichi, and the Gulf of St. Lawrence, probably superior to any now to be found elsewhere.
Having last year paid a visit to one of these beautiful rivers, I propose to give an account of my introduction to the art and mystery of salmon-fishing, to the end that other anglers, whose exploits have hitherto been confined to the capture of a pound trout or a four-pound pickerel, may know the joy of feeling the rush of a twenty-pound salmon fresh run from the sea—the most brilliant, active and vigorous of the finny tribes, the king of the river, using the term in its original sense—the strongest, the ablest, the most cunning. A late writer on English field-sports says: "I assert that there is no single moment with horse or gun into which is concentrated such a thrill of hope, fear, expectation and exultation as that of the rise and successful striking of a heavy salmon."
And first, let me say something of the system of protection to these fisheries adopted by the Canadian government, which renders this sport possible. Finding that under the constant slaughter of salmon and trout, by the Indians with spears and by the whites with nets, the fish were becoming not only scarce, but in danger of extinction, the government interfered, and a few years ago passed laws the effects of which are already apparent. Certainly, a paternal government is sometimes a good thing. On our side the line a ring of wealthy men, with a large capital in nets, seines, pounds, etc., will, as has been seen in Rhode Island, depopulate a coast in a few years of its food-fishes, leaving nothing for increase; and when the poor fishermen, whose living depends on these free gifts of God, ask for protection from the legislature, the ring is too powerful, one of its members being perhaps governor of the State.