might have impressed us more had the artist
been able to conceal her legitimate pride in her handiwork. We emerged
from the chill and varied smells of the scullery, retaining just
sufficient social self-control to keep us from flinging ourselves with
grateful tears upon Julia's neck. Shaken as we were, the expedition
still lay open before us; the game was in our hands. We were winning by
tricks, and Julia held all the honours.

PART II

Perhaps it was the clinging memory of the fried pork, perhaps it was
because all my favourite brushes were standing in a mug of soft soap on
my washing stand, or because Robert had in his flight forgotten to
replenish his cigarette case, but there was no doubt but that the
expedition languished.

There was no fault to be found with the setting. The pool in which the
river coiled itself under the pine-trees was black and brimming, the
fish were rising at the flies that wrought above it, like a spotted net
veil in hysterics, the distant hills lay in sleepy undulations of every
shade of blue, the grass was warm, and not unduly peopled with ants. But
some impalpable blight was upon us. I ranged like a lost soul along the
banks of the river--a lost soul that is condemned to bear a burden of
some two stone of sketching materials, and a sketching umbrella with a
defective joint--in search of a point of view that for ever eluded me.
Robert cast his choicest flies, with delicate quiverings, with
coquettish withdrawals; had they been cannon-balls they could hardly
have had a more intimidating effect upon the trout. Where Robert fished
a Sabbath stillness reigned, beyond that charmed area they rose like
notes of exclamation in a French novel. I was on the whole inclined to
trace these things back to the influence of the pork, working on systems
weakened by shock; but Robert was not in the mood to trace them to
anything. Unsuccessful fishermen are not fond of introspective
suggestions. The member of the expedition who enjoyed himself beyond any
question was Mrs. Coolahan's car-horse. Having been taken out of the
shafts on the road above the river, he had with his harness on his
back, like Horatius, unhesitatingly lumbered over a respectable bank and
ditch in the wake of Croppy, who had preceded him with the reins. He was
now grazing luxuriously along the river's edge, while his driver smoked,
no less luxuriously, in the background.

"Will I carry the box for ye, Miss?" Croppy inquired co