IOO I GO A -FISHING. 



Why she was the prettiest girl in the whole congrega- 

 tion — older than I ; but I used to look at her in church 

 and wonder if any thing more beautiful was ever seen in 

 any age or land. 'When I read of Helen and Cleopatra 

 and Lucretia, and all the beauties of old times, it was al- 

 ways with the notion that each one, blonde or brune, must 

 have looked like Katie Stuart. And a boy's impressions 

 of that kind last him for life. And that night that I was 

 telling of, driving up the Nile before the northern gale, 

 when I passed the American boat and heard the sound 

 of a hymn, I saw in an instant the old church on that 

 very Sunday morning that you were thinking of, Doctor ; 

 and all that scene came back to me, for they were sing- 

 ing on that Nile boat the same hymn which I always re- 

 member as the last song of Katie Stuart. 



" The church was unusually full that morning, for there 

 had been two deaths in the previous week, and a funeral 

 sermon was expected. The day was bitterly cold. The 

 thermometer was twenty degrees below zero all day. I 

 remember how much emotion was visible in the church, 

 for the deaths had been those of young persons very much 

 loved, and there had been a story that one of them, a fine 

 fellow, but long failing, had loved Katie Stuart very dearly. 

 Whether she knew it or not no one could say. But when 

 the minister had finished a touching sermon, leaving young 

 and old in tears, and gave out the hymn to sing, it was 

 hard work to sing it. The precentor got along tolerably 

 well till he came to the beginning of a verse where he 

 found almost no one to help him, and he sang the first 

 three or four notes with only two or three voices accom- 

 panying him, and then he broke down with a sort of sob. 

 Then — I can hear it now — how delicious, how glorious it 

 was ! — Katie Stuart's voice, clear as a bird's, floated up, as 



