88 I GO A- FISHING. 



tains), so he might look more clearly into the perfect 

 beauty of that child's face. I always did maintain and 

 will maintain, though it was in church, and a church of 

 the strictest Scotch persuasion too, that the boy was wise 

 in the pursuit of study, wiser, indeed, in studying that fair 

 face than in listening to what he could not comprehend. 

 The sermon was to his parents, and he was to receive its 

 beneficial effects at second-hand. Meantime he sought 

 the fairest and most perfect work of the Maker's hands 

 in all the circle of his vision, and by experience knew 

 where to look for it. It was not his fault that his ears 

 went through the rail easily, but would not let his head 

 come back, and that the congregation saw his situation, 

 and the young ones first and then the old ones began to 

 smile, and the smile became a laugh, and the end of it 

 was that the minister stopped till he was rescued. 



But all the time there was no smile on that one face 

 at which he had been looking, only a sad, anxious ex- 

 pression, which, for the instant, took the place of the or- 

 dinary peaceful look which rested on it. And then the 

 sermon went on, and the singing followed, and the bene- 

 diction after the singing, and he found her at the church 

 door, and the two walked homeward hand in hand, and 

 said nothing of the accident, for both had forgotten it. 

 Happy forgetfulness of five years' old ! Happy memo- 

 ries of half a century ! 



She was older than I by just five years, and very soon, 

 as the time now seems to me, but long, long after that, 

 as it then seemed, Katie Stuart was a maiden of exceed- 

 ing beauty, the pride of all the country. My friend, Dr. 

 Johnston, was a boy of that congregation, her cousin, and 

 of just her age. 



" Doctor," said I, as we drove homeward, " tell me of 



