The Carved Lions by Mary Louisa Molesworth

My first sight of Miss Ledbury was a sort of agreeable disappointment. She was not the least like what I had imagined, though till I did see her I do not think I knew that I had imagined anything! She had been much less in my thoughts than her pupils; it was the idea of companions, the charm of being one of a party of other girls, with a place of my own among them, that my fancy had been full of. I don't think I cared very much what the teachers were like.

What I did see was a very small, fragile-looking old lady, with quite white hair, a black or purple -- I am not sure which, anyway it was dark -- silk dress, and a soft fawn-coloured cashmere shawl. She had a white lace cap, tied with ribbons under her chin, and black lace mittens. Looking back now, I cannot picture her in any other dress. I cannot remember ever seeing her with a bonnet on, and yet she must have worn one, as she went to church regularly. Her face was small and still pretty, and the eyes were naturally sweet, sometimes they had a twinkle of humour in them, sometimes they looked almost hard. The truth was that she was a gentle, kind-hearted person by nature, but a narrow life and education had stunted her power of sympathy, and she thought it wrong to give way to feeling. She was conscious of what she believed to be weakness in herself, and was always trying to be firm and determined. And since her niece had come to live with her, this put-on sternness had increased.