For Charlton was both curious and interesting to her.

She sympathized with his intellectual activity, and she was full of wonder at his intense moral earnestness.
As for Albert, botany suddenly took on a new interest in his eyes.

He had hitherto regarded it as a science for girls.

But now he was so profoundly desirous of discovering the true character of the tissue in the plant which Miss Minorkey had dissected, that it seemed to him of the utmost importance to settle it that very evening.

His mother for the first time complained of his going out, and seemed not very well satisfied about something.