The grounds were unpretending, too—behind the house a kitchen garden and young orchard; in front and at the sides a spacious yard, where single great forest trees were left standing, with rural seats fixed under their shade. In that rich and fertile soil the favourite rose flourished luxuriantly. Rose-trees adorned the yard, rose-bushes hedged the parterres, rose vines shaded the arbours and climbed the pillars of the piazza and gracefully festooned the eaves, and the fragrance of roses filled the air. What gave a tenderer interest to these beautiful roses was, that they were all love-offerings from the young girls and children to their beautiful and beloved teacher. Mark Sutherland approached this sweet home. Every care and sorrow dropped from his spirit as he opened the little wicket-gate that separated his garden of Eden from the wilderness. He walked on through the shaded yard to the house, and went up to the piazza, and through the front door into the hall, or passage. Here two doors, opposite each other to the right and left, opened—one into their parlour and dining-room, and the other into the school and classroom. He paused a moment, and listened, with a smile, as the low murmur of girls’ voices revealed to him that the school was not yet dismissed. He opened the door and entered. Surely, there never was a school-room so pleasant as this, from which the aspect of dullness, weariness, restraint, and irksomeness, was so completely banished, as there certainly never was a teacher so lovely and so beloved. It was a spacious, airy apartment, lighted with many windows, shaded at a little distance by the rose-wreathed pillars and eaves of the piazza. The furniture was of bright cherry, in cheerful contrast to the white walls and floor. Maps and pictures, of rare beauty and appropriateness, decorated the walls, and shells and minerals and mosses adorned the tables. The young girls and children—some engaged in study, some in pencil-drawing or penmanship, and some in needlework—looked cheery and very much at their ease. They left their seats, and spoke to each other without infringing any rule, but all was done quietly and gracefully, as under the influence of a beloved mistress, whom they obeyed with no forced eye-service, and whom they would not for the world distress or annoy.