The Daughter of a Soldier by L.T. Meade

Mrs. Faithful had never before, in the whole course of her long years as a school-mistress, pronounced herself a failure, but on this occasion she did. She was an essentially honest woman. She told her girls the truth, and what was far more to the point, she told _herself_ the truth. She took her character, so to speak, to pieces, and wondered, as she did on the present occasion, where she could possibly have gone wrong.

The two girls left in her charge were naughty girls -- _very_ naughty girls -- but then she had had naughty girls before. Of course, these were undoubtedly worse, more defiant in their characters, than any of the various maidens who had visited Felicity and had gone through its stern and yet withal its beneficial training; for the school was, as a matter of fact, divided into two parts. There were the girls who needed sharp correction, who required individual and most anxious care, and there were the girls who, having successfully and victoriously passed this ordeal, had entered the happy and bright portion of the school.