Thorn and bramble, branch of bloom and entangling vine, stayed her not; long since she had found or had made for herself a path to the centre of the labyrinth.

Here was a beech-tree, older by many a year than the young wood,--a solitary tree spared by the axe what time its mates had fallen.
Tall and silver-gray the column of the trunk rose to meet wide branches and the green lace-work of tender leaves.

The earth beneath was clean swept, and carpeted with the leaves of last year; a wide, dry, pale brown enchanted ring, against whose borders pressed the riot of the forest.

Vine and bush, flower and fern, could not enter; but Audrey came and laid herself down upon a cool and shady bed.
By human measurement the house that she had left was hard by; even from under the beech-tree Mistress Deborah's thin call could draw her back to the walls which sheltered her, which she had been taught to call her home.
But it was not her soul's home, and now the veil of the kindly woods withdrew it league on league, shut it out, made it as if it had never been.

From the charmed ring beneath the beech-tree she took possession of her world; for her the wind murmured, the birds sang, insects hummed or shrilled, the green saplings nodded their heads.