uld perceive four branchlets surrounding the spike of flowers,
and the flowers themselves, though so minute, were as distinct as
possible, and he could not only count their number, but discern the
stamens, and even the pollen."

"Oh!" exclaimed the children; "how very curious!"

"Yes," replied their governess; "it shows how perfect and wonderful,
from the beginning, are all the works of God."

CHAPTER XVIII.

_AMONG THE PINES_.

"How good it smells here!" exclaimed Edith, with her small nose in the
air to inhale what she called "a good sniff" in the fragrant pine-woods.

Miss Harson had taken the children in the carriage to a pine-grove some
miles from Elmridge, and Thomas and the horses waited by the roadside
while the little party walked about or stood gazing up at the tall
slender trees that seemed to tower to the very skies. Thomas was not
fond of waiting, but he thought that he had the best of it in this case:
it was more cheerful to sit in the carriage and "flick" the flies from
Rex and Regina than to go poking about in the gloomy pine-woods. Yet,
notwithstanding the darkness of its interior and the sombre character of
its dense masses of evergreen foliage as seen from without--whence the
name of "black timber," which has been applied to it--the shade and
shelter it affords and the sentiment of grandeur it inspires cause it to
become allied with the most profound and agreeable sensations; and it
was something of this feeling, though they could not express it in
words, which possessed the young tree-hunters as they stood in the
pine-grove.

"It's nice to breathe here," said Clara.

"It is delicious," replied her governess, enthusiastically, her eyes
kindling as she repeated the lines:

"'His praise, ye winds, that from four quarter blow,
Breathe soft and loud; and wave your tops, ye pines,
With every plant, in sign of worship. Wave!'"

"What a queer brown color--almost like red--the ground is!" said
Malcolm. "And look, Miss Harson! it's made of lots of little
sharp sticks."

"The sharp sticks are pine-needles," was the reply--"the dead
pine-leaves of last year; and when the new growth of leaves have been
put forth, they cover the ground with a smooth brown matting as
comfortable as a gravel-walk, and yet a carpet of Nature's making. 'The
foliage of the pine is so hard and durable that in summer we always find
the last year's crop lying upon the ground in a state of perfect
soundnes