f, with the strong conviction of a
town-bred man: How miserable this is!

A voice from the garden cheered him, just as he reached the end of the
pier for the fiftieth time, and looked with fifty-fold intensity of
dislike at the dreary lake.

There stood Kitty behind the garden-gate, with a fishing-rod in each
hand. A tin box was strapped on one side of her little body and a basket
on the other. Burdened with these impediments, she required assistance.
Susan had let her out of the house; and Samuel must now open the gate
for her. She was pleased to observe that the raw morning had reddened
her friend's nose; and she presented her own nose to notice as
exhibiting perfect sympathy in this respect. Feeling a misplaced
confidence in Mr. Sarrazin's knowledge and experience as an angler, she
handed the fishing-rods to him. "My fingers are cold," she said; "you
bait the hooks." He looked at his young friend in silent perplexity; she
pointed to the tin box. "Plenty of bait there, Samuel; we find maggots
do best." Mr. Sarrazin eyed the box with undisguised disgust; and Kitty
made an unexpected discovery. "You seem to know nothing about it," she
said. And Samuel answered, cordially, "Nothing!" In five minutes more he
found himself by the side of his young friend--with his hook baited, his
line in the water, and strict injunctions to keep an eye on the float.

They began to fish.

Kitty looked at her companion, and looked away again in silence. By way
of encouraging her to talk, the good-natured lawyer alluded to what she
had said when they parted overnight. "You wanted to ask me something,"
he reminded her. "What is it?"

Without one preliminary word of warning to prepare him for the shock,
Kitty answered: "I want you to tell me what has become of papa, and why
Syd has gone away and left me. You know who Syd is, don't you?"

The only alternative left to Mr. Sarrazin was to plead ignorance. While
Kitty was instructing him on the subject of her governess, he had time
to consider what he should say to her next. The result added one more to
the lost opportunities of Mr. Sarrazin's life.

"You see," the child gravely continued, "you are a clever man; and you
have come here to help mamma. I have got that much out of grandmamma, if
I have got nothing else. Don't look at me; look at your float. My papa
has gone away and Syd has left me without even saying good-by, and we
have given up our nice old house in Scotland and come to live