CHAPTER XIV.
THE HANKY SCHOOL The Dovecot was a prim little cottage standing back from the steepest brae in Thrums and hidden by high garden walls, to the top of which another boy's shoulders were, for apple-lovers, but one step up.
Jargonelle trees grew against the house, stretching their arms round it as if to measure its girth, and it was also remarkable for several "dumb" windows with the most artful blinds painted on them.

Miss Ailie's fruit was famous, but she loved her flowers best, and for long a notice board in her garden said, appealingly: "Persons who come to steal the fruit are requested not to walk on the flower-beds." It was that old bachelor, Dr.McQueen, who suggested this inscription to her, and she could never understand why he chuckled every time he read it.
There were seven rooms in the house, but only two were of public note, the school-room, which was downstairs, and the blue-and-white room above.

The school-room was so long that it looked very low in the ceiling, and it had a carpet, and on the walls were texts as well as maps.

Miss Ailie's desk was in the middle of the room, and there was another desk in the corner; a cloth had been hung over it, as one covers a cage to send the bird to sleep.

Perhaps Miss Ailie thought that a bird had once sung there, for this had been the desk of her sister, Miss Kitty, who died years before Tommy came to Thrums.