Chapter 3 - Page 2

possibility of earthly happiness was redeeming him from the grave?

Had the character of Ellen Langton's mind been different, there might,
perhaps, have been danger to her from an intercourse of this nature with
such a being as Fanshawe; for he was distinguished by many of those
asperities around which a woman's affection will often cling. But she was
formed to walk in the calm and quiet paths of life, and to pluck the
flowers of happiness from the wayside where they grow. Singularity of
character, therefore, was not calculated to win her love. She undoubtedly
felt an interest in the solitary student, and perceiving, with no great
exercise of vanity, that her society drew him from the destructive
intensity of his studies, she perhaps felt it a duty to exert her
influence. But it did not occur to her that her influence had been
sufficiently strong to change the whole current of his thoughts and
feelings.

Ellen and her two lovers (for both, though perhaps not equally, deserved
that epithet) had met, as usual, at the close of a sweet summer day, and
were standing by the side of the stream, just where it swept into a deep
pool. The current, undermining the bank, had formed a recess, which,
according to Edward Walcott, afforded at that moment a hiding-place to a
trout of noble size.

"Now would I give the world," he exclaimed with great interest, "for a
hook and line, a fish-spear, or any piscatorial instrument of death! Look,
Ellen, you can see the waving of his tail from beneath the bank!"

"If you had the means of taking him, I should save him from your cruelty,
thus," said Ellen, dropping a pebble into the water, just over the fish.
"There! he has darted down the stream. How many pleasant caves and
recesses there must be under these banks, where he may be happy! May there
not be happiness in the life of a fish?" she added, turning with a smile
to Fanshawe.

"There may," he replied, "so long as he lives quietly in the caves and
recesses of which you speak, Yes, there may be happiness, though such as
few would envy; but, then, the hook and line"--

"Which, there is reason to apprehend, will shortly destroy the happiness
of our friend the trout," interrupted Edward, pointing down the stream.
"There is an angler on his way toward us, who will intercept him."

"He seems to care little for the sport, to judge by the pace at which he
walks," said Ellen.

"But he sees, now, that we are observing him, and is willing to prove that
he knows something of the art," replied Edward Walcott. "I should think
him well acquainted with the stream; for, hastily as he walks, he has
tried every pool and