AN aged tree, whose companions had gone, having still a little sap in its
bark and a few leaves which grew therefrom, prayed it might see yet
another spring. Its prayer was granted: and spring came, but the old
tree had no leaves save one or two near the ground, and a great fungus
fixed itself on its trunk. It had a dull life in its roots, but not
enough to know that its moss and fungus were not foliage. It stood
there, an unlovely mass of decay, when the young trees were all bursting.
“That rotten thing,” said the master, “ought to have been cut down long
ago.”