Within this zone was a hedge of cedar, so smooth, with twigs so thickly interwoven, that the gossamer thought it a framework, on which to stretch its transparent web in the morning sun.

Near the house the lawn was margined with beds of the rarest and most beautiful flowers, queen roses, and all the fragrant populace of the floral world.

But the grandest and most beautiful feature of all was a magnificent elm-tree, standing right in the centre of the green inclosure, toweling upward, sweeping downward, spreading on either side its lordly branches, "from storms a shelter and from heat a shade." I never saw so noble a tree.

I loved it,--I reverenced it.

I associated with it the idea of strength and protection.