They were introspective and beamless.

She had an odd leaning to the talk upon Cuper's boys.

He was puzzled by what he might have classed, in any other woman, as a want of delicacy, when she recurred to incidents which were red patches of the school time, and had clearly lost their glow for her.
A letter once written by him, in his early days at Cuper's, addressed to J.Masner, containing a provocation to fight with any weapons, and signed, 'Your Antagonist,' had been read out to the whole school, under strong denunciation of the immorality, the unchristian-like conduct of the writer, by Mr.Cuper; creating a sensation that had travelled to Miss Vincent's establishment, where some of the naughtiest of the girls had taken part with the audacious challenger, dreadful though the contemplation of a possible duel so close to them was.

And then the girls heard that the anonymous 'Your Antagonist,' on being cited to proclaim himself in public assembly of school-mates and masters, had jumped on his legs and into the name of--one who was previously thought by Miss Vincent's good girls incapable of the 'appalling wickedness,' as Mr.Cuper called it, of signing 'Your Antagonist' to a Christian school-fellow, having the design to provoke a breach of the law of the land and shed Christian blood.

Mr.Cuper delivered an impressive sermon from his desk to the standing up boarders and day-scholars alike, vilifying the infidel Greek word 'antagonist.' 'Do you remember the offender's name ?' the Countess of Ormont said; and Weyburn said-- 'Oh yes, I 've not forgotten the incident.' Her eyes, wherein the dead time hung just above the underlids, lingered, as with the wish for him to name the name.
She said: 'I am curious to hear how you would treat a case of that sort.
Would you preach to the boys?
'Ten words at most.