Explore "The Getting of Wisdom" by Henry Handel Richardson on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
From this moment on -- the moment when Mary the maid's pleasant smile saluted her -- Laura's opinion of life at school suffered a change. She was glad to be back -- that was the first point: just as an adventurous sheep is glad to regain the cover of the flock. Learning might be hard; the governesses mercilessly secure in their own wisdom; but here she was at least a person of some consequence, instead of as at Godmother's a mere negligible null.
Of her unlucky essay at holiday-making she wrote home guardedly: the most telltale sentence in her letter was that in which she said she would rather not go to Godmother's again in the meantime. But there was such a lack of warmth in her account of the visit that mother made this, together with the above remark, the text for a scolding.