Because of the Lockwoods Part III

As Thea is on the verge of leaving school, planning to go to University if possible, she learns that the three Lockwood girls and some other well to do girls they know are all going to France for a year to learn French.   She desperately want to go, and learns that she can go as an “au pair” at the school that she will teach English, in  exchange for board and French lessons.   She wont be paid, but she will not have to pay school fees.
The Lockwoods are not pleased that one of the Hunters is going with them...and when they all travel to France they treat her with their usual haughtiness, though Claire, the youngest girl is nicer, but desperately preoccupied with her own homesickness… 

Thea feels guilty that she has managed to have this opportunity of travel and further education when Molly and Martin are both stuck in jobs they dislike and her mother is still living in a modest house and managing on a small annuity…

However when they get there, they all have a shock.  The school is shabby and not very comfortable.  The English girls are surprised by the very basic facilities in the school, and want to go home.   Thea finds that her new employer has no intention of giving her French lessons and is determined to get as much work out of her as possible.  Like Charlotte Bronte, with whom she identifies, Thea finds the headmistress unkind and harsh, and is annoyed to see that the Lockwoods and their friends are permitted to live within the school but do very little studying. The Headmistress does not want to lose them, so she lets them ignore lessons and hopes they will stay out the year... Thea realises that with the problems of trying to teach unruly French girls and keep within the restrictions that are imposed on young girls in provincial France, she has lost much of her old obsessive dislike of the Lockwoods….