Emma
Mrs. Goddard
Harriet's schoolmistress
The sensible, motherly head of the boarding school where Harriet lives. She is proud of her healthy, plain school.
Mrs. Goddard keeps a respectable boarding school in Highbury, where Harriet Smith lives as a parlor boarder. She is sensible, motherly and bustling, and she takes pride in running a plain, healthy school.
She is a frequent evening guest at Hartfield, where Mr. Woodhouse enjoys her company. She is one of the steady local figures who make up Emma's society, and the kind of respectable woman Highbury relies on. Her school has a good name for being healthy as well as plain.
In the story
Contains spoilers.
Mrs. Goddard's school is where Emma first meets Harriet, and where Harriet is ill with a sore throat on Christmas Eve and cannot join the party at Randalls.
That cold keeps Harriet away from Randalls, which leaves Emma alone with Mr. Elton on the carriage ride home. Mrs. Goddard herself stays in the background of the story, a steady and respectable presence while Harriet's adventures unfold.
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