36 CAROLINE.

 

Dew. Caroline’s opinion. Low places. The cart-path. The cove.

and herbage were all perfectly dry. When going through
some of these places, Caroline said that it would be very
pleasant to come and take that walk some morning at
sunrise, if it were not for the dew.

“Tt would not be possible for us to come along here,”
she said, “in the morning, or after a shower. Malleville
would get wet through, up to her shoulders.”

This was really true, for the ferns in one place which
she had to go through, were so high that the topmost
fronds brushed Malleville’s shoulders as she walked along
between them,—-so rank and tall had they grown. Of
course, these ferns appeared. as tall to Malleville as they
would have seemed to a man if they had been as high as
corn in a corn-field.

There were some spots of low ground, too, in many
places which the children had to pass. It was evident
that these were places where water would usually stand
in wet weather and after rains, but they were all pretty
dry now, and the children got over them without any
difficulty.

At last the children arrived at a sort of cart-path
which came down through the woods in a little valley,
and led to the shore of a pond at a place where there ap-
peared to be a sort of landing. ‘There was a cove here,
that is, a little mdentation in the shore forming a bay.
Some logs, such as are cut in the woods to be sawn into
boards, were floating m the cove. The children crossed
this cart-path, and ascending a little beyond it, they came
to a place among the rocks where there was a smooth
wall on one side and an overhanging precipice behind,
which formed a sort of roof. Maleville immediately ran
to this place, saying that it was a house. There were