what they call the little school-room is a small room at the other end of the great school; through which you go to the doctor's private house, and where miss raby sits with her pupils. she has a half-dozen very small ones over whom she presides and teaches them in her simple way, until they are big or learned enough to face the great school-room. many of them are in a hurry for promotion, the graceless little simpletons, and know no more than their elders when they are well off.
she keeps the accounts, writes out the bills, superintends the linen and sews on the general shirt-buttons. think of having such a woman at home to sew on one's shirt-buttons! but peace, peace, thou foolish heart!
miss raby is the doctor's niece. her mother was a beauty (quite unlike old zoe therefore); and she married a pupil in the old doctor's time, who was killed afterwards, a captain in the east india service, at the siege of bhurtpore. hence a number of indian children come to the doctor's, for raby was very much liked, and the uncle's kind reception of the orphan has been a good speculation for the school-keeper.
it is wonderful how brightly and gaily that little quick creature does her duty. she is the first to rise, and the last to sleep, if any business is to be done. she sees the other two women go off to parties in the town without even so much as wishing to join them. it is cinderella, only contented to stay at home—content to bear zoe's scorn and to admit flora's superior charms,—and to do her utmost to repay her uncle for his great kindness in housing her.
so, you see, she works as much as three maid-servants for the wages of one. she is as thankful when the doctor gives her a new gown, as if he had presented her with a fortune: laughs at his stories most good-humouredly, listens to zoe's scolding most meekly, admires flora with all her heart, and only goes out of the way when jack birch shows his sallow face: for she can't bear him, and always finds work when he comes near.
how different she is when some folks approach her! i won't be presumptuous; but i think, i think, i have made a not unfavourable impression in some quarters. however, let us be mum on this subject. i like to see her, because she always looks good-humoured; because she is always kind, because she is always modest, because she is fond of those poor little brats—orphans some of them,—because she is rather pretty, i dare say, or because i think so, which comes to the same thing.
though she is kind to all, it must be owned she shows the most gross favouritism towards the amiable children. she brings them cakes from dessert, and regales them with zoe's preserves; spends many of her little shillings in presents for her favourites, and will tell them stories by the hour. she has one very sad story about a little boy, who died long ago; the younger children are never weary of hearing about him; and miss raby has shown to one of them a lock of the little chap's hair, which she keeps in her work-box to this day.
