Nor did I win more liking among my companions. They gradually came to treat me with a sort of indifferent contempt.
"It's only that stupid child," I would hear said when I came into the room.
The Christmas holidays came and went, without much improving matters. I spent them at school with one or two other pupils, much older than I. Miss Broom went away, and we were under Miss Aspinall's charge, for Miss Ledbury had caught a bad cold and her niece would not leave her. I preferred Miss Aspinall to Miss Broom certainly, but I had half hoped that Miss Fenmore would have stayed. She too went away, however, having got a "holiday engagement," which she was very glad of she told me when she bade me good-bye. I did not understand what she meant, beyond hearing that she was glad to go, so I said nothing about being sorry.
"She doesn't care for me," I thought.
I saw nothing of Haddie, though he wrote that he was very happy spending the holidays at the house of one of his schoolfellows, and I was glad of this, even while feeling so utterly deserted myself.
It was very, very dull, but I felt as if I did not mind. Even mamma's letters once a fortnight gave me only a kind of tantalising pleasure, for I knew I dared not really answer them. The only thing I felt glad of was that she did not know how lonely and unhappy I was, and that she never would do so till the day—the day which I could scarcely believe would ever, ever come—when I should see her again, and feel her arms round me, and know that all the misery and loneliness were over!
Some new pupils came after the Christmas holidays, and one or two of the elder girls did not return. But the new boarders were older than I and took no notice of me, so their coming made no difference. One event, however, did interest me—that was the appearance at certain classes two or three times a week of a very sweet-looking little girl about my own age. She was pretty and very nicely dressed, though by no means showily, and her tone of voice and way of speaking were different from those of most of my companions. I wished she had come altogether, and then I might have made friends with her. "Only," I said to myself unselfishly, "she would most likely be as unhappy as I am, so I shouldn't wish for it."
One of the classes she came to was the French one—the class which, as I have said, Miss Fenmore taught. And Miss Fenmore seemed to know her, for she called her by her Christian name—"Myra." The first time I heard it I felt quite puzzled. I knew I had heard it before, though I could not remember where or when, except that it was not very long ago. And when I heard her last name, "Raby"—"Miss Raby" one of the other teachers called her—and put the two together—"Myra Raby"—I felt more and more certain I had heard them spoken of before, though I was equally certain I had never seen the little girl herself.
I might have asked Miss Fenmore about her, but it did not enter into my head to do so: that was one of my odd childish ways. And it was partly, too, that I was growing more and more reserved and silent. Even to Harriet Smith I did not talk half as much as at first, and she used to tell me I was growing sulky.
I took great interest in watching for Myra's appearance. I daresay if I could make a picture of her now she would seem a quaint old-fashioned little figure to you, but to me she seemed perfectly lovely. She had pretty brown hair, falling in ringlets round her delicate little face; her eyes were gray, very soft and gentle, and she had a dear little rosebud of a mouth. She was generally dressed in pale gray merino or cashmere, with white lace frilled round the neck and short sleeves—all little girls wore short sleeves then, even in winter; and once when I caught a glimpse of her getting into a carriage which was waiting for her at the door, I was lost in admiration of her dark green cloth pelisse trimmed with chinchilla fur.