“The dressmaking,” she said.  “Of course you know what that is about.  They are preparing another of those out-of-door performances.  Oh, yes, they are very much in earnest,” she went on, with a smile that lightened and sweetened the pronounced character of her face.

“And you are to be entertained this time.  They are not going to ask you to do anything.  Last time, at Campden Hill, you took a principal part, didn’t you?—­but this time you are merely to be a guest—­a spectator.”

“And which are you to be, Miss Cunyngham?” he made bold to ask.

“I?  Oh, they never ask me to join in those things,” she said, pleasantly enough.  “The sacred fire has not descended on me.  They say that I regard their performances as mere childish amusement; but I don’t really; it isn’t for a Philistine like myself to express disdain about anything.  But then, you see, if I were to try to join in with my clever sisters, and perhaps when they were most in earnest, I might laugh; and enthusiasts couldn’t be expected to like that, could they?”

She spoke very honestly and fairly, he thought, and without showing anything like scorn of what she did not sympathize with; and yet somehow he felt glad that he was not expected to take a part in this new masque.

“From what I remember of it,” said he, “I suppose it will be mostly a pageant—­there is plenty of patriotic sentiment in it, but hardly any action, as far as I recollect.  Of course, I know it chiefly because the poet Thomson wrote it, or partly wrote it, and because he put ’Rule Britannia’ into it.  Isn’t it odd,” he added, with a touch of adroit flattery (as he considered), “that the two chief national songs of England, ‘Ye Mariners of England’ and ‘Rule Britannia’ should both have been written by Scotchmen?”

She paid no heed to this compliment; indeed he might have known that the old Scotch families (many of them of Norman origin, by the way) have so intermarried with English families that they have very little distinct nationality, though they may be proud enough of their name.  This young lady was no more Scotch than himself.

“I will try him again now,” said she, with a glance at the water, and forthwith she set to work with rod and line, beginning a few yards farther up the stream, and gradually working down to where she had risen the fish.  As she came near the spot, Lionel could see that she was covering every inch of water with the greatest care, and also that at the end of each cast she let the fly hang for a time in the current.  He became quite anxious himself.  Was she not quite close to the fish now?  Or had he caught too clear a glimpse of the fly on the previous occasion, and gone away?  Yes, she must be almost over him now; and yet there was no sign.  Or past him?  Or he might have turned and gone a yard or two farther down?  Then, as this eagerly interested spectator was intently watching the swirls of the deep pool, there was a sudden wave