Read "The Little School-Mothers" by L.T. Meade online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
The tea came to an end without any special adventure and afterwards the children disported themselves to their hearts' content in the gardens.
The gardens were very extensive. There were paddocks and lawns, and running streams where some of the little mothers declared they could see tiny minnows and other minute fish darting about; and there was a round pond with water-lilies on it and there were many swings, and hammocks in the trees. Besides these delights, there were walled-in fruit gardens, and great glass-houses inside which grew those rarest and most fascinating flowers, orchids.