Down the sunlit path went the girl to the oak thicket which lay between the Light and the road that stretched from the village to Bluff Head. Not a soul was in sight, and the crisp air and glorious view gave a new kind of joy to Janet that was distinct from pleasure. She felt that even if trouble crushed her, she would always be able to know this satisfaction of the senses. She paused at the entrance of the woods and looked back. The path was strewn with a carpet of leaves; here and there a tall poplar stood majestically above its stunted comrades of pines and scrub oaks, but looked gaunt and bare, while the humbler brothers bore a beauty of blood-red leaves, or the constant green. Janet smiled, recalling an old belief of her childhood. She had asked Pa Tapkins once why the oaks were so very little. Pa Tapkins had his explanation ready. It had borne part in his boyhood and was a fully confirmed fact in later life. "It all come of the poplars bein' sich liars, Janet. Never trust no poplar! When things was only sand an' beginnin's in these parts, all the trees sprung up together. But the poplars, bein' snoopier than common, shot up considerable an' took a look around. Lordy! what did they see but the ocean a-roarin' an' makin' as if it was comin' straight over the dunes! An' the poplars passed the word down t' the little oaks, what was jest gettin' their bearin's. It scared 'em so it gave 'em a setback from the fust. But them tall liars wasn't content with statin' truths, day after day, when the sea lay smilin' like a babby; they handed down a bigger whopper than what they did when they fust saw the water. 'Nearer! nearer! it's comin',' that's what they said, mingled 'long with powerful yarns as to how the monster looked! Naterally the scared oaks didn't take no interest in shootin' up, when they thought they was so soon t' be eaten, so they got the habit of crouchin' low an' dependin' on the poplars fur information. They got a notion, too, of turnin' away from the sea. Sort o' sot their faces agin it, so t' speak. The pines, every onct so often, shamed 'em till they blushed deep red,--that comes 'long 'bout spring an' fall,--but no 'mount o' shamin' ever started them int' springin' up an' seein' fur themselves an' givin' the poplars the lie! Don't ye place no dependence on a poplar, Janet, they be shivery, whisperin' critters! They turn pale when there ain't nothin' the matter; they keep their shade t' themselves, jest plain miserly; an' they pry too much. 'T ain't proper; 't is 'most human-like."