beheld some of its mazes; but the part he had
explored he knew well, he had even made a map of it. Margaret had seen
this map; she felt sure, too, that she should know the channels he
called the Lanes. Her idea, upon entering, had been to follow the main
stream to the first of these lanes, there turn off and explore the lane
to its end; then, returning to the main channel, to go on to the second
lane; and so on through Lanse's part of the swamp. They had now explored
two of the lanes, and were entering a third.

She had taken off her hat, and thrown it down upon the cloak beside her.
"It's so oppressively warm in here," she said.

It was not oppressively warm--not warmer than a June night at the
North. But the air was perfectly still, and so sweet that it was
enervating.

The forest grew denser along this third lane as they advanced. The trees
stood nearer together, and silver moss now began to hang down in long,
filmy veils, thicker and thicker, from all the branches. Mixed with the
moss, vines showed themselves in strange convolutions, they went up out
of sight; in girth they were as large as small trees; they appeared to
have not a leaf, but to be dry, naked, chocolate-brown growths, twisting
themselves about hither and thither for their own entertainment.

This was the appearance below. But above, there was another story to
tell; for here were interminable flat beds of broad green leaves, spread
out over the outside of the roof of foliage--leaves that belonged to
these same naked coiling growths below; the vines had found themselves
obliged to climb to the very top in order to get a ray of sunshine for
their greenery.

For there was no sky for anybody in the Monnlungs; the deep solid roof
of interlocked branches stretched miles long, miles wide, like a close
tight cover, over the entire place. The general light of day came
filtering through, dyed with much green, quenched into blackness at the
ends of the vistas; but actual sunbeams never came, never gleamed, year
in year out, across the clear darkness of the broad water floor.

The water on this floor was always pellucid; whether it was the deep
current of the main channel, or the shallower tide that stood motionless
over all the rest of the expanse, no where was there the least
appearance of mud; the lake and the streams, red-brown in hue, were as
clear as so much fine wine; the tree trunks rose cleanly from this
transparent tide, their huge roots could be s