But, in spite of all this Eudoxian grandeur, there was not a poor man in Nowelhurst—no, nor even a woman—who did not feel, in earnest heart, faith and good–will towards her. For the worldly nonsense was cast aside when she stood in the presence of trouble, and her native kindness and vigour shone forth, till the face of grief was brightened. Then she forgot her titled grandmother—so often quoted and such a bore, the Countess of Driddledrum and Dromore—and glowed and melted, as all must do who are made of good carbon and water. So let her walk into the village church with the pride which she is proud of, her tall and comely figure shown through the scarf of lavender crape, her dark silk dress on the burial flags, wiping dust from the memory of John Stiles and his dear wife Susan. And oh, Johanna, thou goodly fat cook–maid, dishing up prayer–books, and Guides to the Altar, and thy gloves on the top ostentatiously—gloves whose fingers are to thine as vermicelli to sausages: Johanna, spoil not our procession by loitering under the hollow oak to wink at thy sweetheart, Jem Pottles. Neither do thou, oh hollow oak, look down upon us, and tell of the tree only one generation before thee. Under thy branches, the Arab himself had better not talk of lineage. Some acorn spat forth, half–crunched and bedribbled, by the deer or the swine of the forest, and in danger perhaps of being chewed afterwards by the ancestors of royalty—our family–trees are young fungus to thee, and our roots of nobility pignuts. CHAPTER X. The scenery of the New Forest is of infinite variety; but the wooded parts may be ranged, perhaps, in a free, loose–branching order (as befits the subject), into some three divisions, which cross and interlace each other, as the trees themselves do. First, and most lovely, the glades and reaches of gentle park and meadow, where the beech–tree invades not seriously, or, at any rate, not with discipline, but straggles about like a tall centurion amused by ancient Britons. Here are the openings winged with fern, and ruffling to the west wind; and the crimped oval leaves of the alder rustle over the backs of the bathing cows. In and out we glance, or gaze, through the groined arcade of trees, where the sun goes wandering softly, as if with his hand before his eyes. Of such kind is the Queenʼs Bower Wood, beside the Boldre Water.