; then we will go down to the schoolroom and see
what the books will tell us in our talk about the American elm and its
cousin of England."

The books had a great deal to tell about them, but Miss Harson preferred
to hear the children first.

"What did my little Edith see when she looked out of the window?" she
asked.

"Stems of trees," was the reply, "with flowers on 'em."

"A very good general idea," continued Miss Harson, "but perhaps Clara
can tell us something more particular about the elms?"

"They are very tall," said Clara, hesitatingly, "and they make it nice
and shady in summer; and some of the branches bend over in such a lovely
way! Papa calls one of them 'the plume.'"

"And now Malcolm?"

"The trunk--or big 'stem,' as Edie would call it--is very thick, and the
branches begin low down, near the ground."

"Some of them do," said his governess, "but many of the elms on your
father's grounds are seventy feet high before the branches begin.
Sometimes two or three trunks shoot up together and spread out at the
top in light, feathery plumes like palm trees. The elm has a great
variety of shapes; sometimes it is a parasol, when a number of branches
rise together to a great height and spread out suddenly in the shape of
an umbrella. This makes a very regular-looking and beautiful tree. For
about three-quarters of the way up, the 'plume' of which Clara speaks
has one straight trunk, which then bends over droopingly. Small twigs
cluster around the trunk all the way from bottom to top and give the
tree the appearance of having a vine twining about it. I think that the
plume-shape is the prettiest and most odd-looking of all the elms.
Another strange shape is the vase, which seems to rest on the roots that
stand out above the ground. 'The straight trunk is the neck of the vase,
and the middle consists of the lower part of the branches as they swell
outward with a graceful curve, then gradually diverge until they bend
over at their extremities and form the lip of the vase by a circle of
terminal sprays.'"

"Have we any trees that look like vases, Miss Harson?" asked Clara.

"Yes," was the reply; "not far from Hemlock Lodge there is one which we
will look at when the leaves are all out. But you must not expect to
find a perfect vase-shape, for it is only an approach to it. The
dome-shaped elm has a broad, round head, which is formed by the shooting
forth of branches of nearly equal length from the same part of