the Mount of Olives is a garden enclosed by a wall.
There are paths and there are plots of flowers, the work of loving hands
in recent years. The flowers speak of to-day, but there are olive trees
in the garden that testify of the history of far-away years. Their
venerable trunks, gnarled and rugged, are like the rough, marred binding
of old books, shutting in a history going back to a far-off date.

"'On one side of this garden slope upward the terraces of the Mount of
Olives--terraces that are cultivated to-day even as the slopes of Olivet
have been cultivated for generations and centuries. The other side of
the garden looks toward the eastern wall of Jerusalem. Deep down in its
shadowy bed, between the wall and the garden, lies the ravine of
the Kedron.

[Illustration: GARDEN OF GETHSEMANE.]

"'If you visit that garden and look upon its old olive trees, the
keeper of the place will tell you that you are in Gethsemane, the spot
of our Saviour's betrayal. He will point out the "Grotto of the Agony,"
the place where the disciples slumbered, and that where Judas, before
his brethren, ceased publicly to be a follower and became the betrayer
of Jesus. Some things you very naturally may question as the guardian of
the enclosure tells his story. Whether any one of the venerable olive
trees ever threw its shadow across the prostrate form of Jesus is more
than doubtful, but that these trees are burdened with the history of
centuries all must concede. "Gethsemane" means "oil-press," and olive
trees long ago gave Olivet its name. That somewhere in this neighborhood
the Saviour suffered cannot be doubted, and within that closed wall may
have been the very spot where he bowed in his agony, and where he heard
the tongue of Judas utter his treacherous "Rabbi!" and where he felt the
serpent-breath of the traitor as that traitor kissed him.'"

Miss Harson read of this solemn spot in a low, reverent tone; and the
little audience were very quiet, until at last Clara said,

"Whenever we see an ash tree or olives, how much there will be to think
of!"

CHAPTER VII.

_THE USEFUL BIRCH_.

"Oh, Miss Harson!" called out Clara, in great excitement, as she caught
up with her governess on a run; "hasn't Edie poisoned herself? She has
been eating this twig."

Edith, of course, at once began to cry.

"You are not poisoned, dear," said Miss Harson, very quickly, after
trying the twig herself; "for this is birch-wood, and it cannot p