I think I first read this book (or, possibly more to the point, started reading this book) when I was still in high school. I don't remember finishing it, and perhaps I didn't. At any rate, I'm glad to have picked it up again, and I found I saw more in it this time than before. The hardest part of the ending, to me, was what happened to Sara Waybourne. What did the headmistress do, and why did she take that step - and why didn't the letter from her mistress go to her, at the end of it all - it would have solved so much.