I feared it might be Jane again, and after the scene I have had with her I really do not want to see her for some time yet.

She has quarrelled with the house-maid, and both have given me notice; and what to do I don't know, just at the beginning of term and all." Miss Pidsley talked on as though she really could not keep her troubles to herself any longer.

"It has been a most trying scene; they upset me dreadfully, they were so violent." Had any one else in the house heard the usually reserved headmistress talking so unreservedly they would have gasped with astonishment.

But Kitty was too full of sympathetic interest to think of anything else.
She had a little unconscious way of her own of winning confidence from the most unlikely of people, and poor Miss Pidsley, who was so weary, so overburthened with worries, so perplexed and altogether out of heart, could not refrain from pouring her troubles out to her; for, first of all, her sympathy, and, secondly, her little gift of the rose had carried her straight into Miss Pidsley's lonely, aching heart.
There was Miss Hammond, of course, for her to confide in, and Miss Hammond would have been told some of the worries by-and-by, but deep down in Miss Pidsley's heart lurked a little pain, a little trouble that Miss Hammond's advice could never lessen.

Miss Hammond was attractive, charming, genial, and every one liked her; the girls all adored her.
Miss Pidsley was not attractive, and she had not a genial manner, and she told herself that nobody cared for her, and that the girls feared and disliked her.