“Really? How very handsome of you!”
“Yes, there’s nothing mean about me. They sometimes object to cooking them at the hotel, and I don’t quite like to throw them away.”
“Why, this is true charity! If I’m to accept them in the name of the farm, I must see them first.”
Gilbert took off his basket and laid it at her feet; she opened it and cried out, “What beauties! Like flowers! But”—she gave ever so little a pretty grimace—“not exactly the same perfume!”
“No,” said he, “they can’t very well help that. But they improve with frying.”
“That’s true,” said Mrs. Farrell. “Well, we’ll take them. And you must get Mrs. Gilbert to ask you to supper. I can’t do it.”
“No,” answered Gilbert, “my generosity shall be unblemished. I never eat the trout I’ve taken, any more. Easton’s religion has had that much effect upon me.”
“Easton’s religion?”
“Yes; he thinks it’s atrocious to kill anything for the pleasure of it.”
“How very droll! And you’re able to behave so nobly with your fish because you couldn’t get them cooked, and wouldn’t eat them if you could!” Gilbert had been standing beside the pile of maple firewood which flanked the kitchen door and sent up a pleasant odor in the sun; Mrs. Farrell said, “Sit down,” and he sat down on a broad block used for splitting kindling. “I wonder what Mr. Easton would have had to say to some of the apostles on the subject of fishing.”