With ready alacrity, Clifford performed the desired service; and as he let go the hook, Miss Estill began a series of manoeuvres with the fish-pole that were as womanly as they were threatening. Finally, after the hook had performed for some time around his head with a dangerous "s-w-i-s-h," it fortunately landed plump into the water, with a thud and splash loud enough to scare all the fish upon dry land.
They stood a moment, silently watching the widening ripple; then, as they seated themselves on the bank again, Miss Estill said, with a smile:--
"You are very brave, indeed, Mr. Warlow, never to wince. But perhaps you were not aware of the great risk a man runs who fishes with a woman. I never should have forgiven myself if that awkward hook had caught in your eye."
"Or my ear," he added, with such a look of comic distress that she dropped her fish-pole into the water with a merry laugh; then, as he joined in the merriment, the startled mocking-bird overhead hushed its song, and flitted away to some quieter nook.
"Now, if we are not more careful, we will have to dine on humility to-day," she said, as he recovered the fishing-tackle. "But do you really grow lonesome in your new home, Mr. Warlow?" she added.
"Yes, indeed I did," said Clifford, with an emphasis on the past tense that indicated the remoteness of those days. "But we were very busy until recently, and I did not fully realize what a hermit I had become until I came here into the crowd, and found myself growing hot and cold by turns, my heart palpitating, and my hands and feet getting heavy. Then I knew it would only be a matter of time when I should fly, like a South Sea Islander, at very sight of a human face, much less the presence of a fashionable young lady;" and he joined Miss Estill's merriment at his charming candor, with an easy laugh.
"Oh, I appreciate the situation," she replied; "for when they sent me to Cincinnati to the boarding-school, where all was so strange, and the only ray of sunshine in the long weeks, months, and years was a flitting call from my fashionable aunt, or the yearly visits to my Western home, I felt desolate and miserable. Why, I was so shy, and possibly a bit wild, that I gained the name of Antelope among my school-mates;" and Miss Estill smiled somewhat sadly at remembrance of those past days.