in Waveney. If any little mistake is made, Captain
Waveney is the man to retrieve it--at least so I've heard them say."

"At all events," said he, "if I go with them at all, it will not be
under false pretences. I shall warn them, to begin with, that I am a bad
shot; then I can't be found out. And they must put me in a position
where I can't do much harm."

"I dare say you shoot very well," she said, with a smile. "Gentlemen
always talk like that on the evening before the Twelfth, if they have
come to a strange moor."

But now she had risen again, for a breath of wind was stirring along the
strath, while some higher air-currents were slowly bringing certain
fleecy clouds across from the west. As soon as the welcome shade had
stolen over the river, she began to cast; and on this smooth water he
could see more clearly what an excellent line this was that she sent
out. Not a long line--perhaps twenty-three or twenty-four yards--but
thrown most admirably, the fly lighting on the surface like a snowflake.
Moreover, he was now a little bit behind her, so that he could with
impunity regard the appearance of this newly-found companion--her lithe
and agile form, the proud set of her neck and head, the beautiful close
masses of her curly, golden-brown hair, and the fine contour of her
sun-tanned cheek. Then the vigorous exercise in which she was engaged
revealed all the suppleness and harmonious proportions of her figure;
for here was no pretty wrist-work of trout-fishing, but the wielding of
a double-handed salmon-rod; and she had taught herself the gillies'
method of casting--that is to say, she made the backward cast by
throwing both arms right up in the air, so that, as she paused to let
the line straighten out behind, her one hand was on a level with her
forehead, and the other more than a foot above that. Lionel thought that
before he tried casting in the presence of Miss Honnor Cunyngham, he
should like to get a few quiet lessons from old Robert.

However, all this expenditure of skill proved to be of no avail. She
could not move a fin; nor had Robert any better luck, when, they having
come to a shallow reach, she allowed the old man, who was encased in
waders, to get into the water and fish along the opposite bank. When he
came ashore again, his young mistress said,

"Dame Fortune hasn't forgiven us for letting that first one go." And old
Robert, who had probably never heard of Dame Fortune (or may have
considered th