“I am fully persuaded that we should hear of none of these infantine airs, if girls were allowed to take sufficient exercise, and not confined in close rooms till their muscles are relaxed, and their powers of digestion destroyed.”
The Tree, home to Toby and his people, symbolizes through its physical structure, the social hierarchy of the people who dwell within it. Toby’s parents marriage, for example, is a rarity as his parents come from different branches of the Tree.