The Laurel Bush (1876)

It was a very ugly bush indeed; that is, so far as any thing in nature can be really ugly. It was lopsided—having on the one hand a stunted stump or two, while on the other a huge heavy branch swept down to the gravel-walk. It had a crooked gnarled trunk or stem, hollow enough to entice any weak-minded bird to build a nest there—only it was so near to the ground, and also to the garden gate. Besides, the owners of the garden, evidently of practical mind, had made use of it to place between a fork in its branches a sort of letter-box—not the government regulation one, for twenty years ago this had not been thought of; but a rough receptacle, where, the house being a good way off, letters might be deposited, instead of; as hitherto, in a hole in the trunk—near the foot of the tree, and under shelter of its mass of evergreen leaves.