dug out of a manure-heap is as killing as any bait ever devised, and it will go hard with our rustic angler if he catch not a fair dish of trout for his supper. If the stream is unpreserved, every likely hole has its visitor, and many are the trout who have no reason to bless the oncoming of the rain.

Birds, beasts, fishes, and man welcome the rain in summer, but in the colder months of the year, ah! it is altogether a different story. We write now in the month of November, and we have had four weeks of almost incessant rain. We have tried to drill ourselves into a cheerful state of mind, but as one swallow does not make a summer, so all our writing has not persuaded us that this present rain is of the same nature as summer rain.

"The day is cold, and dark, and dreary,

It rains, and the wind is never weary;
The vine still clings to the mouldering wall,
But at every gust the dead leaves fall,
And the day is dark and dreary."

We have need of all our philosophy, yet

"Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary."

telligence of purpose; and there is, by the law of contrast, a greater stimulus to seek fresh air and freedom in country rambles and fishing excursions.

When the rustic is an angler, however, he is generally a character well worth knowing. He has a store of practical wisdom, is full of old sayings, quaint and pregnant with meaning; is weatherwise, and knows something of birds and beasts; perhaps has studied botany, especially as connected with the art of healing: and, finally, has a simple, quiet way with him, which is very attractive.

It is easy to sketch his picture.

A thunder-cloud is creeping over the small village that nestles, red-roofed and picturesque, in a typical English valley, blotting out the bright blue sky, and shading the farmyard, so that the frightened fowls run under the hayricks to be out of danger.

The village street is deserted, save for two dogs standing panting at opposite doorways. Look in at one of the windows, in which are a few articles that betoken that there resides the village cobbler. By the open window the cobbler sits, with his last upon his knee, and hammering away as if he thought of nothing but business in the world. He is a man of middle height, thin and bent, not with any great age, for he is only fifty, but through the nature of his calling. His hair is grey, and somewhat straggling and curly. As he hammers away. his brow is bent and his look troubled, as if the fate