96 FLY-FISHING IN MAINE LAKES. 



house ; my impression is, that it will be found in 

 the kitchen-table drawer, sandwiched between sun- 

 dry napkins, newspapers, flatiron-holders, and per- 

 haps a few stray love-letters to Bridget. Oh ! you 

 can guess now, can you? you are right, it's the 

 cook-book. And though I am fully aware, dear 

 reader, that you would have gone without your 

 supper to have gazed upon those grand and lofty 

 peaks as they faded in the decline of day, yet the 

 truth shall be spoken if we forfeit your regard .: we 

 left them, and sought the dining-room. We were 

 hungry : we knew the mountains would keep, but 

 the supper well, there were doubts about that. 



We did not have Harvard or Yale students to 

 wait at table in those days, but we needed no 

 college lore to teach us our method of procedure : 

 in the language of Uncle John Merrill of Andover, 

 we "took hold," and did full justice to our hosts 

 and our appetites. 



And after supper, how pleasant it was, having 

 lighted my cigar, and taken my chair to a lone cor- 

 ner of the piazza, and with only one beside me, but 

 that one's every pulse beating in unison with mine, 

 to gaze up, far upward upon the shadowy peak of 

 Washington, to see the sunlight fade away, the twi- 

 light come, and one by one, the stars appear ! One 

 does not feel like talking much under such influ 



