“‘Cherry’ sounds pretty to say,” continued Clara.  “I wonder how the tree got that name?”

“That wonder is easily explained,” said Miss Harson, “for I have been reading about it, and I was just going to tell you.  ’Cherry comes from ‘Cerasus,’ the name of a town on the Black Sea from whence the tree is supposed to have been introduced into Italy, and it designates a genus of about forty species, natives of all the temperate regions of the northern hemisphere.  They are trees or shrubs with smooth serrated leaves, which are folded together when young, and white or reddish flowers growing in bunches, like umbels, and preceding the leaves or in terminal racemes accompanying or following the leaves.  A few species, with numerous varieties, produce valuable fruits; nearly all are remarkable for the abundance of their early flowers, sometimes rendered double by cultivation.  And now,” added the young lady, “we have arrived at the story, which is translated from the German; and in Germany the cherries are particularly fine.  A plateful of this beautiful fruit was, as you will see, the cause of some remarkable changes.”

CHAPTER XI.

THE CHERRY-STORY.

On the banks of the Rhine, in the pleasant little village of Rebenheim, lived Ehrenberg, the village mayor.  He was much respected for his virtues, and his wife was greatly beloved for her charity to the poor.  They had an only daughter—­the little Caroline—­who gave early promise of a superior mind and a benevolent heart.  She was the idol of her parents, who devoted their whole care to giving her a sound religious education.

Not far from the house, and close to the orchard and kitchen-garden, there was another little garden, planted exclusively with flowers.  The day that Caroline was born her father planted a cherry tree in the middle of the flower-garden.  He had chosen a tree with a short trunk, in order that his little daughter could more easily admire the blossoms and pluck the cherries when they were ripe.

When the tree bloomed for the first time and was so covered with blossoms that it looked like a single bunch of white flowers, the father and mother came out one morning to enjoy the sight.  Little Caroline was in her mother’s arms.  The infant smiled, and, stretching out her little hands for the blossoms, endeavored at the same time to speak her joy, but in such a way as no one but a mother could understand: 

“Flowers! flowers!  Pretty! pretty!”

The child engaged more of the parents’ thoughts than all the cherry-blossoms and gardens and orchards, and all they were worth.  They resolved to educate her well; they prayed to God to bless their care and attention by making Caroline worthy of him and the joy and consolation of her parents.  As soon as the little girl was old enough to understand, her mother told her lovingly of that kind Father in heaven who makes the flowers bloom and the trees bud and the cherries and apples grow ruddy and ripe; she told her also of the blessed Son of God, once an infant like herself, who died for all the world.