olours, all its life, all its interests, it takes from
those great, wide gardens of fruit as they break from leaf into
blossom, blossom to fruit, from fruit to the black, naked branches
of winter, when Cailsham itself sinks into the silence of a
well-earned, lethargic repose. Then they talk of the fruit seasons
that are past, and the fruit seasons that are to come. The lights
burn out early in the windows, and by ten o'clock the little town
is asleep.

This is Cailsham. The narrow High Street and the miniature Exchange,
the square of the market-place and the stone fountain that stands
with such an effort of nobility in the centre, bearing upon one of
its rough slabs the name of the munificent donor, and the occasion
on which the townspeople were presented with its cherished
possession--these are nothing. They are only accessories. The real
Cailsham is to be found in the apple, the plum, and the cherry
orchards. From these, either as owners or as labourers, all the
inhabitants draw their source of life, with the exception of those
few shopkeepers whose premises extend in a disorderly fashion down
the High Street; the Rector, who has his interest in the fruit season
as well as the rest; and lastly, Mrs. Bishop, headmistress of that
little school in Wyatt Street, where the sons of gentlemen are fitted
for such exigencies of life as are to be met with between the ages
of four and eight.

With the name of Lady Bray to conjure popularity, she had set up her
establishment immediately after her husband's death. Then the old
lady herself had fallen asleep--in her case a literal description
of her disease. One night they had put her quietly to bed as usual,
and in the morning she was still asleep--a slumber which really must
be rest.

Fortunately for Mrs. Bishop the school was planted then. Twenty
pupils sat round the cheap kitchen tables in the schoolroom--all sons
of gentlemen--whose mothers paid occasional visits to the house and
peeped into the schoolroom, after they had partaken of tea with Mrs.
Bishop in the drawing-room. Whenever this incident occurred, the
little boys rose electrically from their forms in courteous
deference to the visitor; and the boy, whose mother it was, would
blush with pride and look away, or he would frankly smile up to his
mother's eyes. Then Mrs. Bishop would inevitably eulogize his
progress as she sped the parting guest, making inquiries from her
daughters afterwards to ascertain how near sh