Not yet would the father aspirant show his craft. When he saw her stand there gnawing his innocent bait, he was sorely tempted to call, in the gentlest voice, "Poppie, dear;" but, like a fearful and wise lover, who dreads startling the maiden he loves, he must yet dig his parallels and approach with guile. He would even refine upon his own cunning. The next morning his bait had only a moral hook inside, that is, there was no string attached. But now that happened which he had all along feared. A child of the court--in which there were not more than two, I think--whom Mr. Spelt regarded, of course, as a stray interloper, for had she not enough of the good things already?--spied the sweetmeat, and following the impulses of her depraved humanity, gobbled it up without ever saying, like heathen Cassius, "By your leave, gods." Presently after Poppie appeared, looked, stared--actually astonished now--and, with fallen face, turned and went away. Whether she or her cunning enemy overhead was the more disappointed, I will not venture to determine, but Mr. Spelt could almost have cried. Four-and-twenty long tedious hours of needle and thread must pass before another chance would arrive--and the water so favorable, with the wind from the right quarter just clouding its surface, and the fly so taking!--it was hard to bear. He comforted himself, however, by falling back upon a kind of divine fatalism with which God had endowed him, saying to himself, "Well, it's all for the best,"--a phrase not by any means uncommon among people devoutly inclined; only there was this difference between most of us and Mr. Spelt, that we follow the special aphorism with a sigh, while he invariably smiled and brightened up for the next thing he had to do. To say things are all right and yet gloom does seem rather illogical in you and me, reader, does it not? Logical or illogical, it was not Spelt's way anyhow. He began to whistle, which he never did save upon such occasions when the faithful part of him set itself to conquer the faithless. But he would try the bait without the line once more. Am I wearying my reader with the process? I would not willingly do so, of course. But I fancy he would listen to this much about a salmon any day, so I will go on with my child. Poppie came the next morning, notwithstanding her last disappointment, found the bull's-eye, for such I think it was this time, took it, and sucked it to nothing upon the spot--did it leisurely, and kept looking about--let us hope for Lucy, and that Poppie considered a kiss a lovelier thing still than a lollypop.