'I was not closs,' says she. 'Did you never suspect that there was a world outside that cellar?' said I. 'Never,' says she, 'or lather, yes: but I did not suppose that it was _this_ world, but another where he lived.' 'He who?' 'He who spoke with me.' 'Who was that?' 'Oh! a bite!' she screamed gladly. I saw her float bob under, and started up, rushed to her, and taught her how to strike and play it, though it turned out when landed to be nothing but a tiny barbel: but she was in ecstasies, holding it on her palm, murmuring her fond coo. She re-baited, and we lay again. I said: 'But what a life: no exit, no light, no prospect, no hope--' 'Plenty of _hope_!' says she. 'Good Heavens! hope of what?' 'I knew vely well that something was lipening over the cellar, or under, or alound it, and would come to pass at a certain fixed hour, and that I should see it, and feel it, and it would be vely nice.' 'Ah, well, you had to wait for it, at any rate. Didn't those twenty years seem _long_?' 'No--at least sometimes--not often. I was always so occupied.' 'Occupied in doing what?' 'In eating, or dlinking, or lunning, or talking.' 'Talking to your_self_?' 'Not myself.' 'To whom, then?' 'To the one who told me when I was hungly, and put the dates to satisfy my hunger.' 'I see. Don't wriggle about in that way, or you will never catch any fish. The maxim of angling is: "Study to be quiet"--' 'O! another bite!' she called, and this time, all alone, very agilely landed a good-sized bream. 'But do you mean that you were never sad?' said I when she was re-settled. 'Sometimes I would sit and cly,' says she--'I did not know why. But if that was "sadness," I was never miserlable, never, never. And if I clied, it did not last long, and I would soon fall to sleep, for he would lock me in his lap, and kiss me, and wipe all my tears away.' 'He who?' 'Why, what a question! he who told me when I was hungly, and of the thing that was lipening outside the cellar, which would be so nice.' 'I see, I see. But in all that dingy place, and thick gloom, were you never at all afraid?' 'Aflaid! _I_! of what?' 'Of the unknown.' 'I do not understand you. How could I be _aflaid_? The known was the very opposite of tellible: it was merely hunger and dates, thirst and wine, the desire to lun and space to lun in, the desire to sleep and sleep: there was nothing tellible in that: and the unknown was even less tellible than the known: for it was the nice thing that was lipening outside the cellar. I do not understand--' 'Ah, yes,' said I, 'you are a clever little being: but your continual fluttering about is fatal to all angling. Isn't it in your nature to keep still a minute? And with regard now to your habits in the cellar--?' '_Another!_' she cried with happy laugh, and landed a young chub. And that afternoon she caught seven, and I none. * * * * *