(The speaker, a rosy-cheeked child of one-and-twenty, was quite violent in her repudiation of favour.) And Miss Quincey believed it all, though she understood very little about it.
But it was illumination, a new gospel to her, this doctrine of General Culture; it was the large easy-fitting formula which she had seemed to need.

With touching simplicity she determined to follow the course recommended by the Head.

Though by the time she had corrected some seventy manuscripts in marble-backed covers, and prepared her lesson for the next day, she had nothing but the fag-end of her brain to give to the healers and regenerators; as for rising, Miss Quincey felt much more like going to bed, and it was as much as she could do to drag her poor little body there.

Still Miss Quincey was nothing if not heroic; night after night twelve o'clock would find her painfully trying to draw water from the wells of literature.

She had begun upon Browning; set herself to read through the whole of _Sordello_ from beginning to end.