trees here," said Malcolm, "though I s'pose nobody
ever did anything in particular under ours."

"You mean," replied his governess, laughing, "that they are not
_historical_ trees; but they are certainly very fine ones. There is
another species of elm, the English, which is often seen in this country
too. It is a very large and stately tree, but not so graceful as our own
elm. It is distinguished from the American elm by its bark, which is
darker and much more broken; by having one principal stem, which soars
upward to a great height; and by its branches, which are thrown out more
boldly and abruptly and at a larger angle. Its limbs stretch out
horizontally or tend upward with an appearance of strength to the very
extremity; in the American elm they are almost universally drooping at
the end. Its leaves are closer, smaller, more numerous and of a darker
color. In England this tree is a great favorite with those black and
solemn birds the rooks. The poet Hood writes of it as

"'The tall, abounding elm that grows
In hedgerows up and down,
In field and forest, copse and park,
And in the peopled town,
With colonies of noisy rooks
That nestle on its crown.'

"Some of these English elms are very ancient and of an immense size; one
of them, known as the 'Chequer Elm,' measures thirty-one feet around the
trunk, of which only the shell is left. It was planted seven hundred
years ago. The Chipstead Elm is fifteen feet around; the Crawley Elm,
thirty-five. A writer says, 'The ample branches of the Crawley Elm
shelter Mayday gambols while troops of rustics celebrate the opening of
green leaves and flowers. Yet not alone beneath its shade, but within
the capacious hollow which time has wrought in the old tree, young
children with their posies and weak and aged people find shelter during
the rustic _fetes_.'"

"Does that mean that people can sit inside the tree?" asked Clara. "I
wish we had one to play house in where Hemlock Lodge is."

"That is one of the things, Clara," replied Miss Harson, "that people
can have only in the place where they grow. In the South of England
there is another great elm tree with a hollow trunk which has fitted
into it a door fastened by a lock and key. A dozen people can be
comfortably accommodated inside, and there is a story told of a woman
and her infant who lived there for a time."

"What a funny house!" said Malcolm. "Just like a woodpecker's."

"Anothe