When the great day arrived it was decided that the happy winner of this great prize would receive the fees for a year's schooling in a purse presented to her by Sir John himself, also the scroll of merit and the beautiful ruby locket. The news of Sir John's bounty and the marvelous prize which was to be offered to the fortunate girls was the talk of the entire school. Even Kitty, who little guessed how deeply she was concerned in the matter, could scarcely think of anything else. It diverted her mind from her coming sorrow. On the day that the prize was formally announced she sat down to write to her father to inform him on the subject. "It is too wonderful," she wrote; "I was the most miserable girl in all the world when I got your telegram. I scarcely knew what I was doing, and then Mrs. Clavering took me into her oak parlor and told me still further bad news. That I--oh, father dear, oh, father--that I was to go and live with Helen Dartmoor. How could you think of it, father? But there, she said it had to be, and I felt nearly wild. You don't know what I was suffering, although I tried so very hard to be brave. I am suffering still, but not quite so badly, for what do you think happened in the evening. "You know, or perhaps you don't know, that at the end of summer there is always such a glorious day--it is called Cherry Feast Day, and is given in honor of the school, which is called Cherry Court School. The whole day is given up to festivities of every sort and description, and all the neighborhood are invited to a great big Cherry Feast in the evening. "The feast is held in the walled-in garden, which is lit with colored lanterns. In the very centre of the garden is a grass sward, the greenest grass you ever saw, father, and, oh, so smooth--as smooth as velvet, and on this grass, lit with fairy lamps, the girls dance all kinds of stately, wonderful, old-fashioned dances, and the neighbors sit round and watch, and then at the end we all go into the house, into the great oak hall in the middle, and Mrs. Clavering gives the prizes to the lucky girls. "Of course, feasts of cherries are the order of the hour, and we wear cherry ornaments if possible. You cannot imagine how full of cherries we are in the school, even to cherry-colored ribbons, you know.