had been there before her.

She knelt and prayed many hours for her husband's soul; then she rose
and hung up one chaplet and came slowly away with the other in her hand.
At the gate of the park, Josephine met her with tender anxiety in her
sapphire eyes, and wreathed her arms round her, and whispered, "But you
have your children still."

The baroness kissed her and they came towards the house together, the
baroness leaning gently on her daughter's elbow.

Between the park and the angle of the chateau was a small plot of turf
called at Beaurepaire the Pleasance, a name that had descended
along with other traditions; and in the centre of this Pleasance,
or Pleasaunce, stood a wonderful oak-tree. Its circumference was
thirty-four feet. The baroness came to this ancient tree, and hung her
chaplet on a mutilated limb called the "knights' bough."

The sun was setting tranquil and red; a broad ruby streak lingered on
the deep green leaves of the prodigious oak. The baroness looked at it
awhile in silence.

Then she spoke slowly to it and said, "You were here before us: you will
be here when we are gone."

A spasm crossed Josephine's face, but she said nothing at the time. And
so they went in together.

Now as this tree was a feat of nature, and, above all, played a curious
part in our story, I will ask you to stay a few minutes and look at it,