"And did you find one, my dear?" I said.
"Oh, yes," said she. "We can take you to a great tree that will serve us well, if we can but get across the stream with our goods."
"But would you have us roost, like fowls, in a tree? How do you think we could get up to our perch?"
"Was there not a large lime tree in our town in which they built a ball room, with stairs up the trunk?"
"To be sure there was," said I; "and if we can not build in it, we can at least make use of its shade, and dwell in a hut on the roots."
Ernest said that he took a string, and found that it was twelve yards round. This led me to think that my wife's scheme was by no means a bad one, and that I would have a look at the tree the next day.
When I had heard all they had to tell, we knelt down to pray, and then sought a good night's rest, which the toils of the day made us much in need of.
CHAPTER V.
WHEN I rose from my bed the next day, I said to my wife: "Does it not seem, my dear, as if God had led us to this place, and that we should do wrong to leave it?"