Stopper

Here, even in midwinter, the sun at this hour shoots down scorching rays upon your head.

Seat yourself by the roadside on this ledge of slate rock at the foot of the cork oak, which so invitingly spreads out its sheltering arms.

Here, while you take your breath, cast your eyes around you.

You are no longer in the midst of broken, desolate wastes.

"I must hash up a dish to suit her peculiar taste.

Though no botanist," continued he aloud, "there is one plant that has strongly attracted my attention, and I recommend it to yours; though your hortus siccus will hardly contain a fair specimen of it." "What is that?" said she, on the qui vive to hear of some rare plant.

"It is the cork oak," said the colonel solemnly.

"Its rough exterior has led tourists and artists and even naturalists to treat it with neglect, while it is daily contributing to the comfort, delight, and civilization of the world." "It may perhaps," said Lady Mabel, hesitating, "be said to do all that you attribute to it." "Does it not strike you as passing strange, Lady Mabel—à propos to our subject, pray take a glass of wine with me—that the Romans, who were doubtless a great and a wise people, should have been masters of Spain and Gaul, and of their forests of cork trees for centuries?"