eventy feet
of massive shaft without a bough; and then a dense thicket of black
inwoven branches, making a dusk beneath the fullest sunshine.

'I tell you we haven't trees in the old country; our oaks and larches
are only shrubs,' he said to Robert, when narrating his expedition.
'Wait till you see pines such as I saw to-day. Looking along the forest
glades, those great pillars upheld the roof everywhere in endless
succession. And the silence! as if a human creature never breathed among
them, though the log hut was close by. When I went in, I saw a French
_habitan_, as they call him, who minds the lighthouse on the point,
with his Indian wife, and her squaw mother dressed in a blanket, and of
course babies--the queerest little brown things you ever saw. One of
them was tied into a hollow board, and buried to the chin in "punk," by
way of bed-clothes.'

'And what is punk?' asked Robert.

'Rotten wood powdered to dust,' answered Arthur, with an air of superior
information. 'It's soft enough; and the poor little animal's head
was just visible, so that it looked like a young live mummy. But the
grandmother squaw was even uglier than the grandchildren; a thousand and
one lines seamed her coppery face, which was the colour of an old penny
piece rather burnished from use. And she had eyes, Bob, little and wide
apart, and black as sloes, with a snaky look. I don't think she ever
took them off me, and 'twas no manner of use to stare at her in return.
So, as I could not understand what they were saying,--gabbling a sort
of _patois_ of bad French and worse English, with a sprinkling of
Indian,--and as the old lady's gaze was getting uncomfortable, I went
out again among my friends, the mighty pines. I hope we shall have some
about our location, wherever we settle.'

'And I trust more intimate acquaintance won't make us wish them a trifle
fewer and slighter,' remarked Robert.

'Well, I am afraid my enthusiasm would fade before an acre of such
clearing,' rejoined Arthur. 'But, Bob, the colours of the foliage are
lovelier than I can tell. You see a little of the tinting even from this
distance. The woods have taken pattern by the aurora: it seems we are
now in the Indian summer, and the maple trees are just burning with
scarlet and gold leaves.'

'I suppose you did not see many of our old country trees?'

'Hardly any. Pine is the most plentiful of all: how I like its sturdy
independent look! as if it were used to battling wit