"We come fishing here, sometimes," said Mr. Rollin; "I keep a little boat down there under the bush, and I happen to have the key of the boat here in my pocket. It looks awfully tempting, doesn't it?" I had always been passionately fond of out-door life, and prided myself in having acquired no little skill at the oar. We were out on the painted lake, and I was rowing the light boat, and taking much selfish enjoyment out of the scene around me, when I became conscious that the fisherman was leaning far forward from his seat in the boat, addressing me in a low tone. "To discuss a topic appropriate to the day, Miss Hungerford: I suppose you've read about that fellow who was looking for the pearl of great price, haven't you?--that is, as I take it, you know, it was something that was going to be of more value to him than anything else in the world,--well, now, I believe that every man thinks he's going to be lucky enough to fall in with something of that sort some day, don't you?" Mr. Rollin's tone was unusually serious and even slightly embarrassed. I looked up with curious surprise from my dreamy observation of the water. Then I thought of what Grandma Keeler had said to me about laboring for this young man's spiritual good. "I think we all ought to seek it," I observed tritely, giving a long, studied artistic stroke to the oars. "I don't see why you shouldn't find it, I'm sure--if you ask. I wish that I were good enough to talk to you real helpfully on this subject." I was startled at the inspiriting effect my brief exhortation seemed already to have produced on the soul of Emily's fisherman. "To ask! Is that all!" he exclaimed in the same low breath. And looking at the glowing, though rather unsanctified light on his features, my interest suddenly expanded to take in the possible drift of his words. I concluded that it was time for me to show myself eminently discreet; having departed so far from the immediate object of my mission as to spend a considerable part of the Sabbath driving and rowing with a strange young man, miles from every place of refuge. "I'm tired," I said. "Please row back now, I should like to go home." I rose to give Mr. Rollin my place at the oar. He held out his hand to assist me, and, whether by any malicious design of his or not, at that moment the boat gave a sudden lurch, and I was precipitated helplessly forward into his arms. I felt his kiss burning on my lips. With anger at the fisherman's unfairness, and bitterness at what I felt to be the mortifying result of my own folly and indiscretion--"Oh," I exclaimed; "I hate you! I wish you would never speak to me again! I wish I had fallen into the water." The fisherman sent the boat leaping on with long strokes. "D----n it!" he muttered softly: "I wish you had, and I after you!"