standing with bare trunks?"

"Poor old things! Is it going to last?"

"It spread up the Hudson and east and west in New York and
Massachusetts, and south into Pennsylvania."

"Roger was telling Grandfather a few days ago that a farmer was telling
him that he thought the trouble--the pest or the blight or whatever it
was--had been stopped."

"I remember now seeing a lot of dead trees somewhere when one of
Father's parishioners took us motoring in the autumn. I didn't know the
chestnut crop was threatened."

"Chestnuts weren't any more expensive this year. They must have imported
them from far-off states."

There were still pools of water in the wood path, left by the melting
snow, and the grass that they touched seemed a trifle greener than that
beside the narrow road. Once in a while a bit of vivid green betrayed a
plant that had found shelter under an overhanging stone. The leaves were
for the most part dry enough again to rustle under their feet.
Evergreens stood out sharply dark against the leafless trees.

"What are the trees that still have a few leaves left clinging to them?"
asked Della.

"Oaks. Do you know why the leaves stay on?"