You know he is deformed, Miss Virtue, and they don't care for him, and he has no one to love him but me, and it makes me mad to see him treated so.

That is what it was she wrote about.

I told her they treated him like a dog and so they do," and she burst into tears.
"But that was very naughty, Isobel," Miss Virtue said gravely.

"You are only eleven years old, and too young to be a judge of these matters, and even if it were as you say, it is not for a child to speak so to her mother." "I know that, Miss Virtue, but how can I help it?
I could cry out with pain when I see Robert looking from one to the other just for a kind word, which he never gets.

It is no use, Miss Virtue; if it was not for him I would much rather never go home at all, but stop here through the holidays, only what would he do if I didn't go home?
I am the only pleasure he has.