And there was really a prejudice against me, both among teachers and pupils. A story had got about that my family was very, very poor, that father had had to go abroad on this account, and that my schooling was to be paid for out of charity. So even my gentleness, my soft way of speaking, the surprise I was too innocent to conceal at much that I saw, were all put down to my "giving myself airs." And I daresay the very efforts I made to please those about me and to gain their affection did more harm than good. Because I clung more or less to Harriet Smith, my room-mate, and the nearest to me in age, I was called a little sneak, trying to get all I could "out of her," as she was such a rich little girl.
I overheard these remarks once or twice, but it was not for some time that I in the least knew what they meant, and so I daresay the coarse-minded girls who made them thought all the worse of me because I did not resent them and just went quietly on my own way.
What I did want from Harriet was sympathy; and when she was in the humour to pay attention to me, she did give me as much as it was in her to give.
I shall never forget the real kindness she and Emma too showed me that first night at Green Bank, when a great blow fell on me after we went upstairs to go to bed.
Some one had unpacked my things. My night-dress was lying on the bed, my brushes and sponges were in their places, and when I opened the very small chest of drawers I saw familiar things neatly arranged in them. But there seemed so few—and in the bottom drawer only one frock, and that my oldest one, not the pretty new one mamma had got me for Sundays or any special occasion.
"Where can all my other things be?" I said to Harriet, who was greatly interested in my possessions.
"What more have you?" she said, peering over my shoulder.
I named several.
"And all my other things," I went on, "not clothes, I don't mean, but my workbox and my new writing-desk, and the picture of father and mamma and Haddie"—it was before the days of "carte-de-visite" or "cabinet" photographs; this picture was what was called a "daguerreotype" on glass, and had been taken on purpose for me at some expense—"and my china dog and the rabbits, and my scraps of silk, and all my puzzles, and, and——" I stopped short, out of breath with bewilderment. "Can they be all together for me to unpack myself?" I said.