AN ANGLER'S ROMANCE.

BACHELORS and old maids!

How is it that they

respectively continue in a state of single blessedness? The general opinion undoubtedly is that men remain single because they don't choose to marry, and women become old maids because no one wants to marry them. Yet how often it happens that the facts of each case are not so bald and commonplace as general opinion will have it they are. How often the memory of a sad romance is interwoven with the fast-increasing years of an old bachelor or old maid! Could one know all, there is no class of people so deserving of our sympathy and affection.

Most people have some one tale to tell of the lost youth of some unmarried friend. How this one was jilted, yet never forgot his old love.

How that other

lost her lover at sea, and has ever remained faithful to his memory. Truly, there is many a sad story among the most prosaic of lives.

Every one wondered why Mark Hepworth had

never married. Handsome in face and person, tall and strongly built, the absolute owner, ever since his twentyfirst year, of a fine estate; he had been considered an eligible match, and could have had his choice of dozens of young ladies, each one of whom would have made him a good and loving wife. He was not a misanthrope, but a pleasant, manly fellow, fond of society, and particularly fond of children. Yet at fifty-four he was unmarried. His friends wondered greatly that he had not taken to himself a wife long years ago. Even now, his figure was erect, his gait vigorous, and the light of his eye undimmed. He would have found it no difficult matter to obtain a wife even at this late period of his life. But Mark Hepworth was a confirmed bachelor.

He was also a most enthusiastic fisherman; although, strange to say, as a young man he professed every aversion to the gentle art.

I, though many years younger than Mark, was the intimate friend of his middle age; and although our friendship was almost boyish in its perfection and strength, I had failed to learn why it was that he had not married. I had often asked him, but he had not satisfied my curiosity, although there was that in his manner which led me to believe that he had some good and secret reason for his celibacy.

We had been enjoying a very fine and beautiful spring, and I was tempted to take a short holiday, and

pay a visit to my friend Mark. The morning after my arrival he said to me:

"Now, George, we must have some fishing to-day. The March browns will be on the water, and the trout ought to take the fly beautifully. Did you bring any fishing-tackle with you?"

"No, Mark, I did not."

“Then come into my study and I will soon fit you

out."

We went into his study-a room such as I always longed to possess. The mixture of literature and sport, work and relaxation, which its contents suggested, called up most delightful visions.

"There is a rod for you, George, which, if you haven't lost your old skill, will cast a fly a marvellous distance. Just open that drawer, and you will find plenty of tackle-ah! there is my old fly-book which I always use. The smaller one will do capitally for you. It is well stocked, I know, although I have not used it since I was a boy."

Duly armed, we sauntered over the park, which was starred so prettily with daisies; between high-hedged lanes, where the bushes were clothed with a fresh, vivid green; and so through the scented larch wood, which was still wet with a slight shower, its feathery eaves of foliage shining with emerald sparkles.

All through that sunshining morning we wandered

by the river-side, through groves of giant butterbur, over mossy carpets golden with celandine, by rushy spots where grew the flesh-white cardamine, or “lady'ssmock," and by the side of a clear sparkling stream. Oh, the delight of running water! And then the great trout we took, all under eight inches in length being returned to the water.

Then we halted for lunch, and afterwards, while the smoke of our cigars went curling upwards through the alder branches, I amused myself by searching through the pocket-book Mark had lent me, and discussing the merits of the various artificial flies it contained. In one of the parchment pockets there was a piece of paper, evidently a cutting from a newspaper. I took it out and read the following advertisement:

"Wanted, Copying by a Lady. No offer refused. Address A. Y., Post Office, Broxbourne."

"Wherefore was that so carefully preserved?" I asked, carelessly, handing the slip of paper to Hepworth. I was surprised at the sudden change which came over him. He had been very jovial indeed before, and now the ruddy glow deserted his cheek, and left it deadly pale. He gazed long and intently at the advertisement, and then he said to me :

"What a strange chance that you should find this, George. Thirty years ago I mislaid it, and to think of it turning up now. The greatest happiness and the

greatest sorrow of my life arose out of that advertisement."

He said no more at that time, and I did not choose to question him. All the rest of that day he seemed miserable and out of sorts, and while we were sitting over our wine that evening, he suddenly said :

"I am going to tell you, George, what I have never told to anyone else, and that is, the reason why I have never married. You know that when I was young I was passionately fond of literature.”

"And that fondness has supplied a favourite corner of my book-shelves," interrupted I.

time.

“Well, well, I wrote a great deal of rubbish at one But when I was twenty-three I was engaged in writing a book which I fondly hoped would secure me fame. I had finished the rough draft of it, and I wanted it copied. I never was fond of the manual labour of writing, and I dreaded the idea of copying my book myself. One day I saw that advertisement. The words 'no offer refused,' made me regard it with some attention. There was such a world of pathos in them. The advertisement clearly showed to me that it was penned by some reduced gentlewoman. I was smitten with pity for the lady, who was so poor that she would copy manuscript for the merest pittance. It was a pitiful plea for help which I could not resist, so I wrote to the address given, stating what I wished