or any kind of artificial training. The whole contour of trunk and branches was all a connoisseur could wish or imagine. It resembled a head of red clover in full bloom. The base of the entourage was perfectly level, declining at no section of the circle Indeed, no head of clover was ever set upon its stem more centrally. The spread was full forty feet in diameter, the leaves were well tinted but few had fallen; so that it made a perfect picture for an artist. The park wall for half a mile was of apparently hewn red sandstone laid in mortar, which would now cost a guinea a yard in America. Indeed, sixty rods of it would buy a large farm in Illinois. The road led through pleasant scenery, and was in itself a striking feature of the landscape. On each side was a wall of shrubbery, lined with firs in their perennial dress, and other trees in their autumnal foliage, mingling all the tints of the three seasons in a happy blending. The wild rose and the hawthorn, having no flowers to show, festooned the hedges with a thousand necklaces of their red bead-berries, so that with the silver glimmerings of white birch and other leaves that shone brightly in the grouping, the whole decked out November with a cheery adornment.
We soon came to a little white village, at some distance back from the road, and when abreast of it found that it was only a house with seven gables,
