"I'm sure I don't know, Bella." A little fish has been nibbling for a long time at the bait; the cork has been bobbing up and down--and now he is fairly hooked, and pulls away toward the bank, and you cannot see the cork. "Here, Bella, quick!"--and she springs eagerly to clasp her little hands around the rod. But the fish has dragged it away on the other side of me; and as she reaches farther, and farther, she slips, cries--"Oh, Paul!" and falls into the water. The stream, they told us when we came, was over a man's head--it is surely over little Isabel's. I fling down the rod, and thrusting one hand into the roots that support the overhanging bank, I grasp at her hat, as she comes up; but the ribbons give way, and I see the terribly earnest look upon her face as she goes down again. Oh, my mother--thought I--if you were only here! But she rises again; this time, I thrust my hand into her dress, and struggling hard, keep her at the top, until I can place my foot down upon a projecting root; and so bracing myself, I drag her to the bank, and having climbed up, take hold of her belt firmly with both hands, and drag her out; and poor Isabel, choked, chilled, and wet, is lying upon the grass. I commence crying aloud. The workmen in the fields hear me, and come down. One takes Isabel in his arms, and I follow on foot to our uncle's home upon the hill. --"Oh, my dear children!" says my mother; and she takes Isabel in her arms; and presently with dry clothes, and blazing wood-fire, little Bella smiles again. I am at my mother's knee. "I told you so, Paul," says Isabel--"aunty, doesn't Paul love me?" "I hope so, Bella," said my mother. "I know so," said I; and kissed her cheek. And how did I know it? The boy does not ask; the man does. Oh, the freshness, the honesty, the vigor of a boy's heart! how the memory of it refreshes like the first gush of spring, or the break of an April shower! But boyhood has its PRIDE, as well as its LOVES. My uncle is a tall, hard-faced man; I fear him when he calls me--"child;" I love him when he calls me--"Paul." He is almost always busy with his books; and when I steal into the library door, as I sometimes do, with a string of fish, or a heaping basket of nuts to show to him--he looks for a moment curiously at them, sometimes takes them in his fingers--gives them back to me, and turns over the leaves of his book. You are afraid to ask him if you have not worked bravely; yet you want to do so. You sidle out softly, and go to your mother; she scarce looks at your little stores; but she draws you to her with her arm, and prints a kiss upon your forehead. Now your tongue is unloosed; that kiss and that action have done it; you will tell what capital luck you have had; and you hold up your tempting trophies; "are they not great, mother?" But she is looking in your face, and not at your prize. "Take them, mother," and you lay the basket upon her lap.