And that is the reason why I worship these woods with all my heart.

Ah! if you could only see them in the month of June, when the foliage is at its fulness.
Flowers everywhere--yellow, blue, crimson! Music also everywhere--the song of birds, the murmuring of waters, and the balmy scents in the air.
Then there are the lime-trees, the wild cherry, and the hedges red with strawberries--it is intoxicating.

And, whatever you may say, Monsieur de Buxieres, I assure you that the beauty of the forest is not a thing to be despised.

Every season it is renewed: in autumn, when the wild fruits and tinted leaves contribute their wealth of color; in winter, with its vast carpets of snow, from which the tall ash springs to such a stately height-look, now! up there!" They were in the depths of the forest.

Before them were colonnades of slim, graceful trees, rising in one unbroken line toward the skies, their slender branches forming a dark network overhead, and their lofty proportions lessening in the distance, until lost in the solemn gloom beyond.