THE MAYFLY. 3, 



and run free before the wind or gracefully tack, as it may 

 please them. Little Rosebud claps her hands at the 

 furious leaps of the trout, and shouts with very joy when 

 the fly, after skimming daintily along the surface, and 

 dallying with doom, takes wing once more and escapes 

 scot-free. 



But let us pass on. We will dwell no longer on this 

 remembrance of a happy day; but should I live to the 

 extremest span of human years, whenever the Mayfly ap- 

 pears in its season, the picture of little Rosebud in the 

 shade, following the airy flights of the heedless insects, 

 now up, now down, with her dancing eyes, will be ever 

 before me, for little Rosebud, alas, alas, needs no more to 

 sit in the hedgerow out of the heat. 



The evening fishing repays me for the idle hour, and, to 

 be honest, I meet with far more good fortune than I de- 

 serve. Above the mill, by the hatches, the placid current, 

 when the day declines, is troubled with the movements of 

 many trout. They appear to make no distinction between 

 the insects that touch it. Drake or moth shares the same 

 fate. My artificial Mayfly is quite as good as the plumpest 

 reality. The ladies hover round, observing that fly-fishing 

 is a most gentlemanly pastime, and that a trout is entitled 

 to special consideration as one of the upper ten of the 

 finny tribes. I strike an attitude and resolve to treat my 

 audience to something artistic. I dry the fly : one, two,, 

 three, and then for a cast that shall win a compliment and 

 a fish. The great wings float trembling down to the verge of 



an eddy, and lo ! a plunge and Alack, the cast rebounds 



with no fly at its extremity. I have by sheer stupidity lost 

 both my compliment and my fish ; it is the usual result of 



