A wary old hand stopped Catherine, in the act of presenting “Disasters at Sea,” to Kitty’s notice; and a voice, distinguished by insinuating kindness, said to the child:  “When you have done fishing, my dear, come to me; I have got a nice book for you to read.—­How very absurd of you, Catherine,” Mrs. Presty continued, when they were alone again, “to expect the child to read, and draw her own conclusions, while her head is full of fishing!  If there are any fish in the brook, she won’t catch them.  When she comes back disappointed and says:  ‘What am I to do now?’ the ‘Disasters at Sea’ will have a chance.  I make it a rule never to boast; but if there is a thing that I understand, it’s the management of children.  Why didn’t I have a large family?”

Attended by the faithful Susan, Kitty baited her hook, and began to fish where the waters of the brook were overshadowed by trees.

A little arbor covered by a thatched roof, and having walls of wooden lattice-work, hidden by creepers climbing over them inside and out, offered an attractive place of rest on this sheltered side of the garden.  Having brought her work with her, the nursemaid retired to the summer-house and diligently plied her needle, looking at Kitty from time to time through the open door.  The air was delightfully cool, the pleasant rippling of the brook fell soothingly on the ear, the seat in the summer-house received a sitter with the softly-yielding submission of elastic wires.  Susan had just finished her early dinner:  in mind and body alike, this good girl was entirely and deservedly at her ease.  By finely succeeding degrees, her eyelids began to show a tendency downward; her truant needle-work escaped from her fingers, and lay lazily on her lap.  She snatched it up with a start, and sewed with severe resolution until her thread was exhausted.  The reel was ready at her side; she took it up for a fresh supply, and innocently rested her head against the leafy and flowery wall of the arbor.  Was it thought that gradually closed her eyes again? or was it sleep?  In either case, Susan was lost to all sense of passing events; and Susan’s breathing became musically regular, emulous of the musical regularity of the brook.

As a lesson in patience, the art of angling pursued in a shallow brook has its moral uses.  Kitty fished, and waited, and renewed the bait and tried again, with a command of temper which would have been a novelty in Susan’s experience, if Susan had been awake.  But the end which comes to all things came also to Kitty’s patience.  Leaving her rod on the bank, she let the line and hook take care of themselves, and wandered away in search of some new amusement.

Lingering here and there to gather flowers from the beds as she passed them, Kitty was stopped by a shrubbery, with a rustic seat placed near it, which marked the limits of the garden on that side.  The path that she had been following led her further and further away from the brook, but still left it well in view.  She could see, on her right hand, the clumsy old wooden bridge which crossed the stream, and served as a means of communication for the servants and the tradespeople, between the cottage and the village on the lower ground a mile away.