All the other pupils being daughters of rich tradesmen, they were elegantly dressed, and had their silver forks and cups at table, and plenty of pocket-money for the gratification of their school-girl fancies. Rosa, with her calico frocks and coarse shoes, her iron spoon, tin mug, and empty pockets, felt keenly the inferiority of her position. Her father was as good and as clever as the fathers of her companions; why, then, was he not rich? Why must she wear calico and drink out of tin, while the other girls had silver mugs and beautiful silk dresses? Too generous to be envious, and treated as a favorite by the other pupils, the proud and sensitive child yet recoiled instinctively from a contact which awakened in her mind an unreasoning sense of injustice, and humiliated her, as she felt, for no fault of her own. She had no wish to deprive her little companions of the superior advantages of their lot, but she longed to possess the same, tormenting herself day and night with pondering on her difficulties, and seeking to devise some plan by which they might be overcome. To this period, with its secret mental experiences, is to be traced that firm resolve to achieve a name and a place for herself in the world--to a perception of whose social facts she was now beginning to awaken--which sustained her through the subsequent phases of her artistic development. Yet this resolve, though prompted by a galling sense of the humble character of her wardrobe and “belongings,” pointed less to the acquisition of greater elegance of dress and personal conditions--to which she has subsequently shown herself almost indifferent--than to the attainment of a superior and independent social position. She was determined to be something, though she could not see what, and felt no doubt of the accomplishment of her purpose, though as yet she had no idea of the mode in which it was to be carried out. Meanwhile, her secret discontent preyed on her spirits and affected her health. She became reserved and gloomy, and while seeking, with feverish anxiety, to devise the sort of work that should enable her to gain for herself the superior position she so ardently coveted, she became more and more neglectful of her studies, until, her teachers and her father being alike discouraged by her seeming idleness, the latter withdrew her from the school, and once more took her home.