plorably ignorant of girl nature if you suppose they will be content
with greenhearts two minutes after they have seen our rods put
together."

Such an argument the young man respected, and, relenting, he bought
split-cane rods. Light gun-metal winches, 30 yards of tapered line,
and the regulation etceteras were completed by a couple of waterproof
bags of the finest material, as taking more kindly to the female form
than a hard, bumping, stick-out creel. As was explained to Blind,
there would be always someone to look after the fish caught, if any;
the bag was for fly-book, scent bottle, spring balance, and trifles of
that kind, never forgetting fine cutting pliers in case of accidents
with fingers, lips, noses, or ears hooked foul.

The preliminary lessons being rudimentary and in the nature of drudgery
were of course entrusted to cousin. They were to be imparted, to begin
with, on the smooth sward of the bowling green. The girls required to
be persuaded a little to this humble curriculum, which, in truth, is a
comfortable, serviceable, and labour-saving way of mastering the
rudiments. Granted it is make-believe, yet not more than practising at
a target. The pupils at last were convinced that it was a sensible
means to an end, and began with a flower-pot saucer varying yards up
the lawn. Blind took almost naturally to the trick of allowing the rod
to have its natural way. It was wonderful how after a quarter of an
hour she intuitively understood what to do. But that was her nature;
as a child she was never flustered, and at the first trial her
leisurely sweep, with the needful pause of the line in air behind her,
was admirable. She did, in fact, at the outset what many an
experienced angler has never thoroughly acquired. Lammy, on the
contrary, was hard to coach; that is her nature, too; she always was so
impetuous. From the bare line they advanced to a gut cast and hackled
fly with filed-off barb, and Blind could deftly drop the palmer into
the saucer at twelve yards days before her sister could get out the
line with anything like an approach to straightness.

The time arrived for applied science, and cousin director bade the
girls don those waders which they had clamoured to use even on the
lawn, and come away to the stream. It was fortunate that they had a
shallow which, for practical essays in casting, was a nice compromise,
as a position for throwing a fly, between the unnatural level of the
lawn a