y book lying
near her fishing-basket, and diverted the talk by venturing to ask its
name.

"'T is of Aucassin and Nicolete," she replied, with something in her
voice which seemed to imply that the tender old story would be familiar
to me. My memory served me for once gallantly.

I answered by humming half to myself the lines from the prologue,--

"Sweet the song, the story sweet,
There is no man hearkens it,
No man living 'neath the sun,
So outwearied, so foredone,
Sick and woful, worn and sad,
But is healed, but is glad
'T is so sweet."

"How charming of you to know it!" she laughed. "You are the only man
in this county, or the next, or the next, who knows it, I'm sure."

"Are the women of the county more familiar with it?" I replied.

"But tell me about the trout," she once more persisted.

At the same moment, however, there came from a little distance the
musical tinkle of a bell that sounded like silver, a fairy-like and
almost startling sound.

"It is my lunch," she explained. "I'm a worshipper of the great god
Whim too, and close by here I have a little summer-house, full of books
and fishing-lines and other childishness, where, when my whim is to be
lonely, I come and play at solitude. If you'll be content with rustic
fare, and promise to be amusing, it would be very pleasant if you'd
join me."

O! most prophetic and agreeable trout! Was it not like the old fairy
tales, the you-help-us and we'll-help-you of Psyche and the ants?

It had been the idlest whim for me to save the life of that poor trout.
There was no real pity in it. For two pins, I had been just as ready
to cut it open, to see if by chance it carried in its belly the golden
ring wherewith I was to wed the Golden--

However, such is the gratitude of nature to man, that this little
thoughtless act of kindness had brought me face to face with--was it
the Golden Girl?

CHAPTER IV

'T IS OF NICOLETE AND HER BOWER IN THE WILDWOOD

But I have all this time left the reader without any formal descriptive
introduction to this whimsical young lady angler. Not without reason,
for, like any really charming personality, she was very difficult to
picture. Paint a woman! as our young friend Alastor said.

Faces that fall into types you can describe, or at all events label in
such a way that the reader can identify them; but those faces that
consist mainly of spiritual effect and physical bloom, that change with
e