Let me confess, then, that I assumed the character of a fastidious angler, and managed to be a week in discovering the right place to fish in—­always, it is unnecessary to say, under Alicia’s guidance.  We went up the stream and down the stream, on one side.  We crossed the bridge, and went up the stream and down the stream on the other.  We got into a punt, and went up the stream (with great difficulty), and down the stream (with great ease).  We landed on a little island, and walked all round it, and inspected the stream attentively from a central point of view.  We found the island damp, and went back to the bank, and up the stream, and over the bridge, and down the stream again; and then, for the first time, the sweet girl turned appealingly to me, and confessed that she had exhausted her artless knowledge of the locality.  It was exactly a week from the day when I had first followed her into the fields with my fishing-rod over my shoulder; and I had never yet caught anything but Alicia’s hand, and that not with my hook.

We sat down close together on the bank, entirely in consequence of our despair at not finding a good fishing-place.  I looked at the brown eyes, and they turned away observantly down the stream.  I followed them, and they turned away inquiringly up the stream.  Was this angel of patience and kindness still looking for a fishing place?  And was it up the stream, after all?  No!—­she smiled and shook her head when I asked the question, and the brown eyes suddenly stole a look at me.  I could hold out no longer In one breathless moment I caught hold of both her hands—­in one stammering sentence I asked her if she would be my wife.

She tried faintly to free her hands—­gave up the attempt—­smiled—­made an effort to look grave—­gave that up, too—­sighed suddenly—­checked herself suddenly—­said nothing.  Perhaps I ought to have taken my answer for granted; but the least business-like man that ever lived becomes an eminently practical character in matters of love.  I repeated my question.  She looked away confusedly; her eye lighted on a corner of her father’s red-brick house, peeping through a gap in the plantation already mentioned; and her blushing cheeks lost their color instantly.  I felt her hands grow cold; she drew them resolutely out of mine, and rose with the tears in her eyes.  Had I offended her?

“No,” she said when I asked her the question, and turned to me again, and held out her hand with such frank, fearless kindness, that I almost fell on my knees to thank her for it.

Might I hope ever to hear her say “Yes” to the question that I had asked on the riverbank?

She sighed bitterly, and turned again toward the red-brick house.

Was there any family reason against her saying “Yes”?  Anything that I must not inquire into?  Any opposition to be dreaded from her father?

The moment I mentioned her father, she shrank away from me and burst into a violent fit of crying.