tree, set off by themselves
into the wide world, and I have nothing more to tell you about _them_.
We must see what Brush and his companion did during the rest of the
summer, what adventures they met with, and what new acquaintances they
found among the various animals that lived in the neighbourhood of
their beautiful oak-tree.

Here I must give you a short description of the place where this tree
grew, and where it had flourished for five or six hundred years at
least.

It was in a small, but very beautiful valley, through which ran a brook
of the clearest water imaginable. This little stream came down from the
hills, and ran through the upper part of the valley, in a very furious
manner, as if it were in a hurry to be gone, that it might join the
dark deep river, and reach the wide ocean at last. But just at the spot
where our oak raised its head very far above all the trees around it,
the impatient stream gradually changed its manner of proceeding, and
began to run more slowly, as if desirous of remaining a little longer
in such a delightful spot. So, after quietly winding backwards and
forwards for some time, it spread itself out at last into the form of a
most beautiful little pond, through which the current was so slow that
it was hardly perceptible.

The gentleman to whom this valley, and the country around it, belonged,
had spent many hundreds of pounds, and had employed the most skilful
people he could find, in making his gardens and pleasure-grounds as gay
and beautiful as possible. And yet, if you had walked all over his
property, you would have said that no part of it was half so lovely as
this little retired valley, where the art of man had never done
anything to add to its exceeding beauty. The gardener's spade and
pruning-knife had never been used here. Everything you saw was fresh
and unaltered from the hand of God himself.

I think the most beautiful part was the pond, and the open space just
around it; for here the finest wild-flowers grew in abundance, and the
noble oak-tree was so near, that, when the winds of autumn came down
the valley, the trout, that delighted to swim in those pure waters,
were sometimes startled by a shower of acorns, falling down from the
outermost branches, and making a terrible splash over their heads.

I have not time to describe more than a very few of the plants which
were to be found in the pond and on its banks. There was the
water-lily, with its large green leav