rs of her youth on the
echoing and desolate soil of the garden.

XCV.

When I returned to M---- on the following Sunday, I looked round from
the top of the mountain for the clump of trees that stood out so
pleasantly on the hillside, screening from the sun a portion of the
gray wall of the house; and it seemed as a dream when in their wonted
place I perceived only heaps of hewn-down trunks whose barked and
bleeding branches strewed the earth around. A sawing-trestle stood
there like an instrument of torture, on which the saw with its grinding
teeth divided the trees. I hurried on with extended arms towards the
outer wall, and trembled as I opened the little garden door.... Alas!
the evergreen oak, one lime-tree, and the oldest elm alone were
standing, and the bench had been drawn in beneath their shade. "They
are sufficient," said my mother, as she advanced towards me, and, to
conceal her tears, threw herself into my arms; "the shade of one tree
is worth that of a whole forest. Besides, to me what shade can equal
yours? Do not be angry. I wrote to your father that the trees were
dying from the top, and that they were hurtful to the kitchen-garden.
Speak no more of them!"... Then leading me into the house, she opened
her desk and drew forth a bag half-filled with money. "Take this," she
said, "and go. The trees will have been amply paid me if you return
well and happy."

I blushed, and with a stifled sob took the bag. There were six hundred
francs in it, which I resolved to bring back untouched to my poor
mother.

I started on foot, like a sportsman, with leathern gaiters on my feet,
and my gun on my shoulder, and took from the bag only one hundred
francs, which I added to the little I had remaining from the proceeds
of my last sale. I could not bear to spend the price of the trees, and
therefore concealed the remainder of the money at the farm, that on my
return I might restore it to her who had so heroically torn it from her
heart for me. I ate and slept at the humblest inns in the villages
through which I passed, and was taken for a poor Swiss student
returning from the University of Strasbourg. I was never charged but
the strict value of the bread I ate, of the candle I burned, and of the
pallet on which I slept. I had brought but one book with me, which I
read at evening on the bench before the inn door; it was Werther, in
German; and the unknown characters confirmed my hosts in the idea that
I was a f