The next day went by before Rose was believed to be well enough to cast a fly. Mr. Ellett dropped down to ask how Miss Lyndsay was, and to leave a note from Carington, with a half-dozen of the famous Millers.

Aunt Anne smiled a little as she caught Mr. Ellett on his way to the house, no one else but she being at home. She made herself very amusing, and, as Ellett was enthusiastic about Carington, she bagged, as she said, all there was to be known of both young men.

“You see, Miss Lyndsay, I am unlucky enough to have more money and more time than Carington says is good for me. But everybody has the same time as everybody else. That’s so, isn’t it? I saw it in—I think I saw it in Smith’s ‘Wealth of Nations.’ Ever read it, Miss Lyndsay?”

“Yes,” said Anne, charmed with her capture.

“I don’t have much time now. I go in for managing hospitals and things. You see, Fred says a man who can run a club can manage a hospital. Good notion, that. He says men are better housekeepers than women.”

“What heresy!”

228“Isn’t it? Nowadays Fred has more money than I have. You see, he builds bridges and things.”

“Then you and your friend Mr. Carington have little in common, from your account.”

“Oh, yes, we have; we like each other.”

“That’s neatly and nicely said; but don’t you think that, on the whole, in people who are intellectually sympathetic, unlikeness of tastes and pursuits may be as good a foundation for friendship as a common fondness for this or that?”

“Y-e-s,” said the small gentleman, somewhat perplexed. He was slow of apprehension, but in the end likely enough to become clear as to what he should think of things said. Miss Anne, on the other hand, was a rapid talker and thinker, and sometimes overestimated the capacity of people to follow her.

“We were speaking of this last week. I said then that as little reason goes into the making of most friendships as into most love-affairs, or, for that matter, into most of the religious attachments which men call their beliefs. Friendship ought to be a tranquil love-affair of the head, without base question of dot,” and she laughed.

“But I like a fellow first, and then find reasons for it afterward.”

“I said it was a love-affair of the head. I have a small heart somewhere in my head; I know that. Some folks have two heads, and call one a heart.”

“I don’t think I quite follow you, Miss Lyndsay,” said Ellett.

“Oh, there’s no need to.”

229“But it’s dreadful to get left the way I do, at the first hurdle. I was going to tell you what Fred said to me once; it wasn’t bad at all. He said once that ours was a friendship of convenance at first, and then, afterward— Well, the fact was, I happened to hear that he needed money, and I used to admire him, but I never did think he would care for a fellow like me, that shot pigeons, and rode steeplechase, and—killed things.”

“And you helped him?”

“Good heavens, Miss Lyndsay! I never meant to—to say anything about that. I—”

“You need not apologize,” she said, smiling. “I am getting to be a pretty old maid, and that gives me privileges. I think I like Mr. Carington’s friend”; and she said to herself, “You are a dear, shrewdly simple little man.”

Then he thanked her, blushing as he rose, and saying:

“Now, I must go and get a fish.”

As for Rose, she began to feel that it was rather nice of Mr. Carington to be in no haste to come after the inevitable gratitude; but when a pleasant note came to Mrs. Lyndsay inclosing the flies, she began also to have a certain amount of curiosity as to the man in question, much, I suppose, like the beginning of that same fatal emotion which in the end causes the salmon to inspect at closer quarters the provocative Jock Scott or Durham ranger.

It was now near the end of their second week, and the after part of the third day from that which saw the drama of the bear and cub. Rose had killed two 230salmon in the morning, and, not having altogether gotten over the loss of blood, had declined to fish again in the afternoon. Anne was in her room, the mother out in the boat with Mr. Lyndsay, and the boys off to dig up the unhappy woodchuck. Rose had the pleasant feeling of having the house to herself. She took a volume of Lowell, and, settling herself in the hammock, was soon so deep in the delicate analysis of Gray that she did not observe the coming canoe, until of a sudden Carington was beside her.

“Good evening, Miss Lyndsay.”

Rose made the usual awkward effort to rise from her comfortable nest, saying, “I am like the starling, I can’t get out.”

“Permit me,” he said, and, with the help of his hand, she was on her feet.

“Upon my word,” she laughed, “you seem to be essential to the getting me out of scrapes. I am, I was, always shall be hopelessly in your debt,” and she blushed prettily, feeling that she had been less formal than she had meant to be. “Pray sit down,” she added, taking a camp-stool.

“Thanks. Don’t you think that to give a man such a chance to oblige people like—like your father and mother—rather puts the sense of obligation on the other side?”

“Aunt Anne says that it is written large on some debts, ‘Not transferable.’ You have put it very nicely, and still you must let me say once for all, I thank you.”

“And I am forgiven for my boy frolic?”

231“I don’t know,” she cried, smiling. “That is not nominated in the bond.”

“Well, we will consider the other obligations settled,” he said, “and leave this for future adjustment. You will give me what the men call a good ‘recommend’ for a new place as bowman? I am rather vain of my poling. How wet you were!”

“Wet! You have no idea. It established new standards of moisture for me. But we got the fish.”

He liked the pronoun of partnership.

“Yes. I wonder if Mr. Lyndsay would let you fish our water. I could promise you a salmon or two. Ellett would like to exchange to-morrow afternoon, and try your lower pool, so that, if Mr. Lyndsay would take the lower half of our fishing and we the upper, we should be agreeably matronized—patronized I should say. Will you be so good as to give your father this note?”

Rose said yes, and he took up the book she had dropped into the hammock.

“Lowell! I like his essays more than his verse, except always the immortal fun of the Biglow Papers. That must surely live. For most of his poetry I care little.”

“Yes, it is graceful, interesting at times, which is not true of some much greater verse; but I do not care for it much,—and that is dreadful, because we all know him well and love him well.”

“Indeed! How pleasant that must be! Long as I have lived near him, I have never seen him.”

“We shall quarrel here and now if you do not at once praise the Biglow Papers.”

232“Oh! but I could not say too much of them. After their kind they stand alone.”

“Thank you! And how rare it is that the poets combine humor with the higher qualities! It is sadly true of our day.”

“Yes, yes! It is laughable to hear people talk of Browning’s humor. At times he is grotesque or sard............