They all did something in the house.

But I believe that their greatest advantage over poor Matilda was that they had not been accustomed to hear dress and appearance talked about as matters of the first importance, so that whatever defects they felt conscious of in either did not weigh too heavily on their minds.
On poor Matilda's they weighed heavily indeed.

And she was not only troubled by that consciousness of being plain, by which I think quite as many girls are affected as by the vanity of being pretty (and which has received far less attention from moralists); she was also tormented by certain purely nervous fancies of her face being swollen, her eyes squinting, and her throat choking, when people looked at her, which were due to ill-health.
Unhappily, the ill-health which was a good excuse for Matilda's unwillingness to "play pretty" in the drawing-room was the subject on which she was more perverse than any other.

It was a great pity that she was not frank and confiding with her mother.

The detestable trick of small concealments which Miss Perry had taught us was partly answerable for this; but the fault was not entirely Matilda's.
Aunt Theresa had not time to attend to her.