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John's, by the willow-hung walks of Trinity, by the ivied walls and trim gardens of Clare, past the great white palace-front of King's, and so by the brick gables and oriels of Queens' into the Newnham mill-pool.

Leonard, a very intelligent friend of mine, saw a cat catch a trout by darting upon it in a deep clear water at the mill at Weaford, near Lichfield. The cat belonged to Mr. Stanley, who had often seen her catch fish in the same manner in summer, when the mill-pool was drawn so low, that the fish could be seen. I have heard of other cats taking fish in shallow water, as they stood on the bank.

There all eyes were strained towards the spot where the large tell-tale cork-float slowly rose to the surface, and its white top could be seen stationary right on the far side of the mill-pool.

Surely there can be no lovelier place in the whole world than the mill-pool where we went yesterday with Linda Nilsson." Karen was coloring the letters in a motto to hang on the wall: and Gerda, who was weaving a rug on her grandmother's wooden loom, crossed the room to admire her friend's work.

Dismounting from his steed, the herrador proceeded to divest it of the saddle, then causing it to enter the mill-pool, he led it by means of a cord to a particular spot, where the water reached half way up its neck, then fastening a cord to a post on the bank, he left the animal standing in the pool.

But the eels did not seem to have approved of the visitor who had been upon their domains, and, judging from appearances, they had all bade good-bye to the place, for not another bite could either of the boys get in the mill-pool; so they had to try in the deep part of the back-water, where they met with a little better success, and between them succeeded in capturing about two dozen more; when they found that the mist was rising heavily from off the water, and various other indications pointed out that it was time to think of returning homeward.

The scenery was a series of dissolving views, beginning on a flower-decked lawn, and ending at a mill-pool a mile or so away from the audience. Beauty played leading actor with considerable activity, notwithstanding the drawback of being handicapped with an undigested bantam.

The freshets swept down the valleys, the myriad yellow twigs of the brookside willows turned green, a cheery piping rose from the ponds, the last gleam of snow passed from the farthest hills, the bluebird sang, the harrow followed the plough, Ruth's crocuses shone above the greening sod, and down by the old mill-pool and on the steep hillside beyond it she and Isabel gathered arbutus, anemones, and the yellow violet.

'Then why not try the mill-pool? he said, and we replied politely; and when he was gone to tell his man something we owned to each other that he was a trump. He did the thing thoroughly. He took us out and cut us ash saplings for rods; he found us in lines and hooks, and several different sorts of bait, including a handsome handful of meal-worms, which Oswald put loose in his pocket.

But come what may, or flourish where they please, the empty shells are in time rolled down from trout-stream and chalk-stream, fountain and rill, mill-pool and ditch, cress-bed and water-cut, from the springs of the Cotswolds, the Chilterns, the downs, from the valleys of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Surrey, Gloucester, Oxford, and Essex, into the Thames.