CHAPTER IX.

THE FIRST LESSON.

THE walk to school was a very delightful one, and as the trio
trudged over the road from day to day, chattering like magpies,
laughing, singing, shouting, and dancing in the exuberance
of childish glee, all seemed equally light-hearted and joyous.
Even the little slave who carried the books which she was unable to read,
and the basket of dinner of which she could not by right partake,
with a keen eye for the beautiful, and a sensitive heart to
appreciate nature, could not apparently have been more happy,
if her condition had been reversed, and she had been made the served
instead of the servant.

The way for half a mile lay through a dense pine-wood,--the tall
trees rising like stately pillars in some vast temple filled with
balsamic incense, and floored with a clean, elastic fabric, smooth as
polished marble, over which the little feet lightly and gayly tripped.
In the central depths where the sun's rays never penetrated,
and the fallen leaves lay so thickly on the ground, no flowers
could grow, but on the outer edges spring lavished her treasures.
The trailing arbutus added new fragrance to the perfumed air,
frail anemones trembled in the wind, and violets flourished in the shade.
The blood-root lifted its lily-white blossoms to the light, and the
cream-tinted, fragile bells of the uvu-laria nestled by its side.
Passing the wood and its embroidered flowery border, a brook
ran across the road. The rippling waters were almost hidden
by the bushes which grew upon its banks, where the wild honeysuckle
and touch-me-not, laurels and eglantine, mingled their beautiful