the trees, which were already laden with
the tempting fruit.

They were all eagerly discussing the great event of the year, the
Cherry Feast, which was to take place in three weeks from the present
day. Their names were Mabel and Alice Cunningham, two handsome
dark-eyed girls, aged respectively seventeen and fifteen; Florence
Aylmer, who was also fifteen and the romp of the school; Mary Bateman,
a stolid-looking girl of fourteen; Bertha Kennedy, who had only lately
been raised to the rank of the Upper school; Edith King, a handsome,
graceful girl, who competed with Mabel for the honors of the head of
her class; and Kitty Sharston, who had only lately come, and who had
some Irish blood in her, and was very daring and very much inclined to
break the rules. She was a hobbledehoy sort of girl, having
outstripped her years, which were only thirteen, and was considered by
some of her companions very plain and by others very fascinating.

Mrs. Clavering did not quite know what to make of Kitty, but hoped to
break her in by and by, and meanwhile she was very gentle, and Kitty
loved her, although she never could be got to see that so many
restrictions and so many little petty rules were not good, but
extremely bad, for her character.

On this particular lovely summer's afternoon Kitty was the last to make
her appearance. She came skimming gracefully through the orchard under
the cherry trees, with her hair down her back, her skirt awry, and a
great stain on the front of her pinafore. In the seventies girls as
old as Kitty wore long white pinafores. The stain was caused by some
cherry juice, for Kitty had stopped many times as she approached the
others to take great handfuls of the ripe fruit, and thrust them into
her mouth. Mabel called to her to sit down.

"We are all busy discussing the great event," she said, "and I have
kept a seat for you near me, Kitty; wasn't it good of me?"

"Awfully good," answered Kitty. She flung herself on the ground by her
friend's side and looked up at her with affectionate eyes.

"I like you all," she said, glancing round at them, "and yet all the
same I hate school. The great thing that I look forward to in the
treat is that immediately afterwards the holidays follow. I shall go
down to join my father in Cornwall. He said he would take me to
Ireland, but I doubt if he will. Now, Tommy, what are you frowning at?"

This remark was made to Florence Aylmer. Kitty from the first had