Page:By Sanction of Law.pdf/34

 her in one of the most fashionable finishing institutions in New England, Miss Gregory's School for Girls, noted all over the country for the careful training and the standing given it among select schools, largely because of its proximity to one of the larger universities of the East, in the shadow of whose greatness this girls' school basked.

Nestling among the elms for which the city was famous, on a prominence around which the wealth and aristocracy of the city was grouped, the main building of Miss Gregory's school sat fronting a well kept lawn, the elms and lawn combining to create the picture of some monastery of heavy stone masonry. This structure had once been the home of an eccentric millionaire who toiled to accumulate, then erected this mausoleum in which he planned to pass his declining days overlooking the city below and amusing himself counting the passing small craft on the Seekonk River which passed the rear of his wide garden.

When the mansion was built it was then the fashion of New England aristocracy to acquire immense acres of land, build imposing structures on some prominent and well chosen part of it, fence in the entire plot with a high stone wall and make a fairy garden out of a portion of the enclosed land in the rear of the house, while utilizing the other part for garden purposes. Such had been the history of the ground now occupied by Miss Gregory's school. The entire plot covered some twelve acres with this threestoried cupola-studded castle-like building, now ivy overrun standing as a bar to entrance if viewed from the front;