Leaving him to the becoming abasement of that delusive self-comfort which ministers to our vain-glory, and which this good old man had so happily succeeded in rebuking, we will return to the spot where we left our other parties. Ned Hinkley had already joined them. With his horse he had providently brought a suit of his own clothes for the stranger, which, though made of homespun, and not of the most modern fashion, were yet warm and comfortable, and as Stevens was compelled to think, infinitely preferable to the chilly and dripping garments which he wore. A few moments, in the cover of the woods, sufficed the neophyte to make the alteration; while the two cousins, to whom the exigencies of forester and fisherman life were more familiar prepared to walk the water out of their own habits, by giving rapid circulation to their blood and limbs. While their preparations were in progress, however, Ned Hinkley could not deny himself the pleasure of discoursing at length on the subject of the late disaster. “Stranger,” he said, “I must tell you that you've had a souse in as fine a fishing-pond as you'll meet with from here to Salt river. I reckon, now, that while you were in, you never thought for a moment of the noble trout that inhabit it.” “I certainly did not,” said the other. “There, now! I could have sworn it. That a man should go with his eyes open into a country without ever asking what sort of folks lived there! Isn't it monstrous?” “It certainly seems like a neglect of the first duty of a traveller,” said Stevens good-humoredly; “let me not show myself heedless of another. Let me thank you, gentlemen, for saving my life. I believe I owe it to one or both of you.” “To him, not to me,” said Ned Hinkley, pointing to his cousin. William was at a little distance, looking sullenly upon the two with eyes which, if dark and moody, seemed to denote a thought which was anywhere else but in the scene around him. “He saved you, and I saved the woman. I wouldn't have a woman drowned in this lake for all the houses in Charlemont.” “Ah! why?” “'Twould spoil it for fishing for ever.” “Why would a woman do this more than a man?” “For a very good reason, my friend. Because the ghost of a woman talks, and a man's don't, they say. The ghost of a man says what it wants to say with its eyes; a woman's with her tongue. You know there's nothing scares fish so much as one's talking.” “I have heard so. But is it so clear that there is such a difference between ghosts? How is it known that the female does all the talking?”