hemselves
a garrison, nor pull nor struggle with each other. So the poor oak was
shorn of its military glories, and forced to comfort itself by bearing
a larger crop of acorns than had been possible during the stirring and
warlike times, now for ever ended.

Then there was "The Dove-cote," an easily climbed beech, on which rows
of girls might be seen at noon-times roosting like fowls in the sun.
And there was "The Falcon's Nest," which produced every year a few
small, sour apples, and which Isabella Bright had adopted for her
tree. She knew every inch of the way to the top; to climb it was like
going up a well-known staircase, and the sensation of sitting there
aloft, high in air, on a bough which curved and swung, with another
bough exactly fitting her back to lean against, was full of delight
and fascination. It was like moving and being at rest all at once;
like flying, like escape. The wind seemed to smell differently and
more sweetly up there than in lower places. Two or three times lost in
fancies as deep as sleep, Isabella had forgotten all about recess and
bell, and remained on her perch, swinging and dreaming, till some one
was sent to tell her that the arithmetic class had begun. And once,
direful day! marked with everlasting black in the calendar of her
conscience, being possessed suddenly, as it were, by some idle and
tricksy demon, she stayed on after she was called, and, called again,
she still stayed; and when, at last, Miss Fitch herself came out and
stood beneath the tree, and in her pleasant, mild voice told her to
come down, still the naughty girl, secure in her fastness, stayed. And
when, at last, Miss Fitch, growing angry, spoke severely and ordered
her to descend, Isabella shook the boughs, and sent a shower of hard
little apples down on her kind teacher's head. That was dreadful,
indeed, and dreadfully did she repent it afterward, for she loved Miss
Fitch dearly, and, except for being under the influence of the demon,
could never have treated her so. Miss Fitch did not kiss her for a
whole month afterward,--that was Isabella's punishment,--and it was
many months before she could speak of the affair without feeling her
eyes fill swiftly with tears, for Isabella's conscience was tender,
and her feelings very quick in those days.

This, however, was eighteen months ago, when she was only ten and a
half. She was nearly twelve now, and a good deal taller and wiser. I
have introduced her as Isabella,