governess. At the same time, she nourished ambitions, discernible
perhaps in the singular light of her deep-set eyes and a something
of hysteric determination about her lips. Her aim, at present, was
to become a graduate of London University; she was toiling in her
leisure hours--the hours of exhaustion, that is to say--to
prepare herself for matriculation, which she hoped to achieve in the
coming winter. Of her intimate acquaintances only one could lay
claim to intellectual superiority, and even she, Nancy Lord to wit,
shrank from the ordeals of Burlington House. To become B.A., to have
her name in the newspapers, to be regarded as one of the clever, the
uncommon women--for this Jessica was willing to labour early and
late, regardless of failing health, regardless even of ruined
complexion and hair that grew thin beneath the comb.

She talked only of the 'exam,' of her chances in this or that
'paper,' of the likelihood that this or the other question would be
'set.' Her brain was becoming a mere receptacle for dates and
definitions, vocabularies and rules syntactic, for thrice-boiled
essence of history, ragged scraps of science, quotations at fifth
hand, and all the heterogeneous rubbish of a 'crammer's' shop. When
away from her books, she carried scraps of paper, with jottings to
be committed to memory. Beside her plate at meals lay formulae and
tabulations. She went to bed with a manual and got up with a
compendium.

Nancy, whose pursuit of 'culture' followed a less exhausting track,
regarded the girl with a little envy and some compassion. Esteeming
herself in every respect Jessica's superior, she could not help a
slight condescension in the tone she used to her; yet their
friendship had much sincerity on both sides, and each was the