us, the oak, the chestnut, and the beech seem as if they bore no
flowers, so small are they and so little distinguishable except by
naturalists; but in the forests of South America it is often the most
gigantic trees that produce the most brilliant flowers; cassias hang
down their pendants of golden blossoms, vochisias unfold their singular
bunches; corollas, longer than those of our foxglove, sometimes yellow
or sometimes purple, load the arborescent bignonias; while the chorisias
are covered, as it were, with lilies, only their colours are richer and
more varied; grasses also appear in form of bamboos, as the most
graceful of trees; bauhinias, bignonias, and aroideous plants cling
round the trees like enormous cables; orchideous plants and bromelias
overrun their limbs, or fasten themselves to them when prostrated by the
storm, and make even their dead remains become verdant with leaves and
flowers not their own.'"

Though he could read very well, Charlie had, so far, rather stumbled
through the long names in this description, but he finished off with
fluency, not to say enthusiasm. "'Such are the ancient forests,
flourishing in a damp and fertile soil, and clothed with perpetual
green.'"

I was half-way through a profound sigh when I caught the school-master's
eye, who had paused in his plan-making and was listening with his head
upon his hand.

"What a groan!" he exclaimed. "What's the matter?"

"It sounds so splendid!" I answered, "and I'm so afraid I shall never
see it. I told Father last night I should like to be a sailor, but he
only said 'Stuff and nonsense,' and that there was a better berth
waiting for me in Uncle Henry's office than any of the Queen's ships
would provide for me; and Mother begged me never to talk of it any more,
if I didn't want to break her heart"--and I sighed again.

The school-master had a long smooth face, which looked longer from
melancholy, and he turned it and his arms over the back of the chair,
and looked at me with the watchful listening look his eyes always had;
but I am not sure if he was really paying much attention to me, for he
talked (as he often did) as if he were talking to himself.

"I wanted to be a soldier," he said, "and my father wouldn't let me. I
often used to wish I had run away and enlisted, when I was with
Quarter-master McCulloch, of the Engineers (he'd risen from the ranks
and was younger than me), in Bermuda."

"Bermuda! That's not very far from South