The Priory was about a mile away from the railway station, and it was with a beating heart and a queer lump in her throat that Patty found herself stepping from the cab and alighting at a great doorway ornamented with ecclesiastical carvings, and, giving a hasty glance round a courtyard where girls of various ages seemed already to be collected, realized that she had at length reached school. In the fourteenth century Morton Priory had been a monastery of the Franciscan order, and it now seemed a strange irony of fate that feminine petticoats should reign supreme within the very walls where the grey brothers had lived in such seclusion. The old refectory where they had dined, and the cloister where they had been wont to meditate, were now given up to a lively, laughing crew of girls, whose serge skirts and white blouses among the quaint surroundings made a curious blending of ancient and modern. What remained of the monastic building occupied one side of a large quadrangle, while the other three sides were taken up with modern additions, erected, however, in such excellent taste, and so closely in accordance with the architecture of the older portion, that the whole had a strictly mediaeval appearance. In the centre of the courtyard was a pretty Italian garden, with neat box edgings, where stood the sundial which had marked the hours for the monks who once paced there, and still remained an old-world protest against the big clock in the tower over the gymnasium that set the time for the clanging school bell. Situated in the midst of beautiful scenery, the large grounds formed a little self-contained kingdom, shut off from the rest of the world: the numerous tennis courts and the playing fields provided ample space for outdoor sports; the home farm supplied milk, butter, and eggs; the kitchen garden grew the fruit and vegetables; while a small sanatorium in a breezy corner ensured a safe retreat for anyone who happened to be placed upon the sick list.