io8 FISHING FOR PLEASURE 



could complete the story by telling of its recovery. 

 I can but hope that some good fairy or water- 

 nymph will some day put it into the mouth of a 

 big trout, that Lady S., who casts a fly admirably, 

 will catch that trout, and that her cook will find 

 in his interior that solid gold ring, and that so, 

 some day or other, it may find its way back to the 

 middle finger of the left hand of the present writer ! 

 There is a sort of psychical sentiment about a 

 ring which one has worn for thirty years and 

 more the gift of a dear old lady, long since de- 

 parted. A glance at it, when I had it, and the 

 thought of it, now I have lost it, has oftentimes 

 brought to mind pleasant memories of pleasant 

 things in bygone days, which would otherwise 

 not have been remembered. A glance at that 

 ring always called up a pretty picture of a niece 

 of mine, a charming young girl of seventeen, 

 feeding a pair of young doves on a lawn at an 

 old farm-house. She admired my ring, then a 

 new one. Where is she now? she married, she 

 went to Australia, she had two sons the elder, 

 a youth of twenty, volunteered to go out to the 

 Boer War. He distinguished himself, and gained 

 the D.S.O. He returned home to find his mother 

 dying. She died two years ago. I am still waiting 

 for that big trout to swallow my glittering ring 

 and then ! ' 



1 Whilst preparing this sheet for press I have by chance 

 received this cutting from a local newspaper. It affords 



