most dangerous phantom. The body's charms allure men to draw near, the parted lips do promise joy, as flowers offer their sweet juices to the bee; but the smileah, boy, it is indeed thy masterpiece!-doth seem like those the sirens wore while contemplating the expiring mariners at their feet. Its mockery is complete. Boy,

I congratulate thee! I need not bid thee name thy subject, for the image itself bespeaks Deception."

"No! no! no! cried the youth passionately-"it is not that. O God! Deception! Do not call it that!"

"Then thou art a fool," exclaimed the master contemptuously. "Thou hast moulded virtue a courtesan, and dost conceive the face of a lover contemplating his mistress only to carve the features of a man assuring his mother of his filial devotion; and now, what have we here? Deception, surely-thy conception of Constancy, most likely."

"I have not yet named it," replied the youth; "but listen, master: For many months I have worked within these walls, moulding these images which thou hast broken. They were the creatures of my fancy, and represented in their forms the various phases of life as they appeared to my young eyes. They were imperfect, for thou hast assured me they were; but this-this is none of them. It is indeed the image of a woman I have seen. I saw her only once-in a cathedral. Our eyes met; it was only for a moment, then the rising congregation obscured her from my view. I never saw her again, nor have I since, by word or sign, communicated with her. Her name is even unknown to me, yet since then she has never been out of my thoughts. Her face is ever before my eyes; her form is ever near me, bending above me as I work, sitting beside me in the firelight and mingling in my dreams at night. We converse together in the language of my fancy. She points to horizons which I cannot see, and tells me that there success will crown my efforts. She bids me toil unceasingly, and makes light that toil with her smiles. My secrets are all known to her, my follies and my virtues-all. I love the shadow and I seek the woman."

"And if thou didst find the woman, thou wouldst then admit the shadow, viewed through the rose-coloured spectacles of thine idealistic fancy, to be the more satisfactory," said the master. "Thou sayest thou hast no secrets from her does she reciprocate thy confidence ?"

“Ah, no,” replied the youth; "she speaks not of her past in words, but her eyes tell me that she too has suffered sorrow and disappointment. She seems to tell me that life to her is what it is to me-a day of sunshine and of shadow."

66

'Thy mental mistress tells thee truth, my boy," returned the master kindly ; "but before the sun come the hours which precede dawn. Those hours are dark, and little likely to tempt with future promise one who is already revelling in sunbeams. The original of thy image is not for thee."

"Thou knowest her, then?" exclaimed the youth.

"I have seen her many times, and know her well," replied the master; be assured, she will not turn back to cast in her lot with thee.”

"Why should she not?" cried the youth.

love? Will not these insure her happiness?"

"but,

"Have I not youth, ambition and

"It is not enough," returned the master; "she is not for thee. This," he continued, as he pointed to the image, "this is entirely a child of air—a creature of thy fancy. Thou wilt find the shadow a vast deal more satisfactory than the living, breathing presentment. This will certainly not forbid thy caresses or doub their wisdom, but will fatuously agree to all thy mad schemes in the pursuit of the phantom, Happiness; yet the damsel who inspired thee will not do so."

"And are my hopes indeed so mad, then?" asked the boy.

"Perhaps not; but she will think them so," replied the master. "Thy path is a thorny and toilsome one. Thou must travel it alone."

"Now, by our God, I know thee to be right, O master. Yet I will not name her now. Nameless has she existed in my fancy, and nameless shall she perish. I will not carve Deception on my image."

Then, seizing a stick from the floor, the youth raised it to destroy the embodiment of his delusion; but the iron hand of the master grasped his wrist and averted the blow.

"Stay!" he said; "this is indeed thy masterpiece. Thou hast only to name it to make thee famous."

The youth paused, and

his flashing eyes riveted their gaze upon the threatened subject of his disappointment. Then an expression of remorse overcame his countenance, and the stick fell from his hand.

"Thou art right," he answered; "and yet the world shall never know it as my masterpiece. I will chisel it in cold marble and keep it near me, and it shall evermore be sacred in my eyes. I knew its original only for a moment, but I loved her; and that which I have loved I will not destroy. In marble it shall endure-the last image-ay, the monument of the dreams of my youth."

Then, taking a chisel and mallet, he carved a name upon the pedestal of the image. This done, he threw himself upon a bench and buried his face in his hands.

The aged master contemplated him with pitying eyes. Then he advanced towards the image and read the word which the youth had inscribed thereon.

It was Fate.

The old man gently laid his hand upon the bowed head of the weeping boy, and his eyes, looking through the open door, seemed to gaze far, far into the receding vistas of the past. He smiled-yet it was a smile of neither joy nor pain.

"Thou hast yet much to learn," he said, as he gazed upon the fragments with which the floor was strewn; "but by this, thy last image, do I know that thou art indeed a disciple of the Master of Life."

AUBREY TYSON.

HE lovely river Teme, which takes its rise a few miles from Newtown in North Wales, and thence winds its way to the Severn, through Radnorshire and Salop, is par excellence the English home of the grayling. Nine miles west of Ludlow, near Leintwardine, the junction of the Clun with the Teme, grayling fishing is perhaps better than it is anywhere else in England-it has been said in the world; but the pick of this fishing is most strictly preserved by the Leintwardine Angling Club and other owners near Ludlow. There are, however, parts of the Teme where fishing can be had more easily and at a cheaper rate than in the aforesaid waters: these are bits of river where on payment of a small fee, or by the courteous leave of a landowner, capital sport may be had. Tenbury, or Tenbury Wells as it calls itself, is one of these spots-a charming little place, nested in a green fertile valley beside the Teme, from which it takes its name. The town itself is on the north-west border of Worcestershire, but the Swan Hotel and the railway station, on the other side of the Teme, are in Shropshire.

About two hundred and fifty years ago Izaak Walton wrote, in his "Compleat Angler," about the umber or grayling: "In Italy, he is in the month of May so highly valued that he is sold there at a much higher rate than any other fish. . . . The French value the umber or grayling so highly that they say he feeds on gold, and that many have been caught out of their famous river Loire out of whose bellies grains of gold have been often taken. . . . St. Ambrose, the glorious bishop of Milan, who lived when the Church kept fasting days, calls him the flower-fish, or flower of fishes."

...

Honest Izaak goes on: "He grows not to the bigness of a trout; for the biggest of them do not usually exceed eighteen inches. He lives in such rivers as the trout does, and is usually taken with the same baits as the trout is, and after the same manner." The grayling "is bolder than a trout; for he will rise twenty times at a fly, if you miss him, and yet rise again. . . . He has so tender a mouth that he is oftener lost after an angler has hooked him than any other fish. . . . He is not so general a fish as the trout, nor to me so good to eat or to angle for."

It is evident that old Izaak rated the trout much more highly than the grayling, and the majority of anglers no doubt agree with him; still of late years the grayling seems to have

risen in favour in England. Some of our anglers now say that the grayling excels a trout of like size both for sport and for eating.

With due respect to Izaak's dictum, it may be said that the beautiful silver grayling is, as a rule, a more cautious fish than his golden, red-spotted cousin, the trout, who in rapid, seldom-fished water, will come dashing at a tempting, well-thrown fly, and at times hook himself almost before the angler has seen him. The fastidious grayling is far more quiet and careful: he loves to lie in a deep hole, or in quiet water at the edge of a rapid current; he rises slowly at the feathered lure, and when he has seized it he dives down with it, instead of at once rushing wildly away, after the manner of the trout.

It is true that the skilful angler may usually hook the grayling as he dives downward; but, as Izaak points out, it is quite another matter to land him. His lower lip is singularly tender, and if he is hooked in that part the greatest care has to be taken so that he may not escape by breaking the lip. Many a good fish is lost in this way. On the other hand, the grayling's upper lip is so hard that sometimes the hook breaks in it. He is an altogether "game" fish, and more science is probably required to land him than to land a trout of equal weight.

With regard to toothsomeness, good as the grayling is if cooked the day he is caught, I fancy most people are of old Izaak's opinion, and prefer the trout.

We found ourselves at Tenbury station one evening in September, after a tediously slow journey from Birmingham.

of the garden we saw a singular-looking green pyramid, made by a group of yew trees, which years of growth and diligent clipping have formed into this striking feature; the inside is hollowed out into a refuge from sun and wind.

Our pleasant sitting-room on the first floor had an ample bay window, and from it we had a delightful view of the picturesque bridge, of the river and town, of the grey church tower rising behind a wealth of trees; beyond, stretched the smiling landscape. On this evening, and many other evenings of our stay, the whole picture was bathed in a flood of red-gold light as the sun slowly sank to rest.

The Swan has the great advantage of not being in the town, although it is close by for perfect cleanliness, good cooking, and quiet, homelike comfort, it would not be easy to find a better hotel in a small English country town. The landlord is also a farmer; he manages the outside affairs of the establishment, while his excellent, bright, and ever busy wife, is ubiquitous and untiring indoors, full of kindness and attention to her guests.

Tenbury being a fishing centre, the hotel is, of course, especially devoted to the requirements of anglers. But visitors who are not bent on exercising the "gentle craft" will find everything they can reasonably want at the Swan: it is truly an ideal resting-place for tired brain workers.

The town, quiet as it is, boasts a Spa, where those addicted to such experiments can drink the waters, which are said to be beneficial for gout, rheumatism, liver complaints, and many other ailments.

Tenbury still has a few old half-timbered houses in its quaint streets: the most remarkable of these is the Royal Oak Inn, not far from the Spa; and there is another good specimen of these houses just outside the town; there is also a curious old redbrick house hidden away behind the church.

The church itself, dedicated to St. Mary the Virgin, has been almost entirely rebuilt, but portions of the eleventh-century building can be seen both in the chancel and in the tower. There are several interesting monuments in this church. One in the north wall of the chancel is said by Mr. Oliver Baker to be "about the oldest monumental effigy in the district, and perhaps the only sculptured effigy in the kingdom which shows the mufflers or gloves of mail hanging loose from the wrists, not, as generally represented, on the folded hands": the figure is that of a mailed knight, recumbent, with crossed legs, under an elegant stone canopy. The Acton monument has two life-size figures in quaintly stiff and elaborate sixteenth-century costume; this