Misunderstood.
Claudia’s success in the German class was, as Charlotte had expected, but the first of her triumphs. She had natural abilities of the first order; she had been excellently and most carefully taught, with the close individual attention and sympathy which no teacher can give in such perfection as a parent, rare though the parents may be who are fitted to teach their own children! And joined to these advantages she had the most intense desire to learn, not merely from her innate love of knowledge, but from the even nobler motive of wishing to help her parents. So that it was not to be wondered at that by the end of the first week Miss Lloyd, who had been requested by Lady Mildred to let her know her opinion of her new pupil, sent to Silverthorns a most satisfactory report. For Miss Lloyd was honest to the backbone.
“Miss Meredon will make good progress, I have not the least doubt,” she wrote; “but it is only fair to say that the credit will be mostly due to her own application and to the teachers who have already so thoroughly taught her how to learn.”
Lady Mildred showed Claudia the letter.
“It will not make you vain,” she said, “for it is your mother it praises, not you. Miss Lloyd must be a straightforward sort of person; most schoolmistresses try to make out that their pupils know nothing when they go to them, and learn everything with them. Does she ever cross-question you as to who those teachers of yours were?”
“No,” said Claudia. “She asked me—or perhaps it was the French governess—if I had ever been abroad, and I said no, and then I think I said I had always been taught at home.”
“And the other pupils—do they seem inquisitive either?”
Claudia hesitated.
“I don’t think they are more so than any girls would be,” she said. “I—I don’t tell them anything, and of course they are accustomed to being very friendly and communicative with each other. I think they are all nice girls. The one I like the best—she and I do nearly all the same lessons—is Charlotte Waldron. At least I think I could like her if I knew her; but—”
“But what? You are not going to begin pestering me to let you make friends with her—her especially—I told you I don’t like her family,” said Lady Mildred irritably.