e when Cherry Court
garden was not the talk of the country. Visitors came from all parts
round to see it. It was celebrated on account of its very high walls
built of red brick, its size, for it covered at least three acres of
ground, and its magnificent cherries. The cherry trees in the Court
garden bore the most splendid fruit which could be obtained in any part
of the county. They were in great demand, not only for the girls who
lived in the old house and played in the garden, but for the neighbors
all over the country. A big price was always paid for these cherries,
for they made such splendid jam, as well as being so full of juice and
so ripe and good to eat that their like could not be found anywhere
else.

The cherries were of all sorts and kinds, from the celebrated White
Heart to the black cherry. There were cherries for cooking and
cherries for eating, and in the season the trees, which were laden with
ripe fruit, were a sight to behold.

In the height of the cherry season Mrs. Clavering always gave a cherry
feast. It was the event of the entire year, and the girls looked
forward to it, making all their arrangements in connection with it,
counting the hours until it arrived, and looking upon it as the great
feature of their school year. Everything turned on whether the
cherries were good and the weather fine. There was no greater stimulus
to hard work than the merest mention of this golden day, which came as
a rule towards the end of June and just before the summer vacation.
For Cherry Court School was old-fashioned according to our modern
ideas, and one of its old-fashioned plans was to give holidays at the
end of June instead of the end of July, so that the girls had the
longest, finest days at home, and came back to work at the end of
August refreshed and strengthened, and prepared for a good long tug at
lessons of all sorts until Christmas.

The school consisted of twenty girls, never more and never less, for
Mrs. Clavering was too great a favorite and had too wise and excellent
ideas with regard to education ever to be without pupils, and never
more, for she believed twenty to be the perfect number to whom she
could give every attention and offer every advantage.

The school, small as it was, was divided into two sections, the Upper
and the Lower. In the Upper school were girls from eighteen to
fourteen years of age, and in the Lower some of the small scholars
numbered even as few years as