And certainly during this early youth, Laura showed no signs of getting
herself married. She did not apparently know when a young man was by; and
her bright vehement ways, her sharp turns of speech, went on just the
same; she neither quivered nor thrilled; and her chatter, when she did
chatter, spent itself almost with indifference on anyone who came near
her. She was generally gay, generally in spirits; and her girl companions
knew well that there was no one so reserved, and that the inmost self of
her, if such a thing existed, dwelt far away from any ken of theirs.
Every now and then she would have vehement angers and outbreaks which
contrasted with the nonchalance of her ordinary temper; but it was hard
to find the clue to them.

Altogether she passed for a clever girl, even in a University town, where
cleverness is weighed. But her education, except in two points, was, in
truth, of the slightest. Any mechanical drudgery that her father could
set her, she did without a murmur; or, rather, she claimed it jealously,
with a silent passion. But, with an obstinacy equally silent, she set
herself against the drudgery that would have made her his intellectual
companion.

His rows of technical books, the scholarly and laborious details of his
work, filled her with an invincible repugnance. And he did not attempt to
persuade her. As to women and their claims, he was old-fashioned and
contemptuous; he would have been much embarrassed by a learned daughter.
That she should copy and tidy for him; that she should sit curled up for
hours with a book or a piece of work in a corner of his room; that she
should bring him his pipe, and break in upon his work at the right moment
with her peremptory "Papa, come out!"--these things were delightful, nay,
necessary to him. But he had no dreams beyond; and he never thought of
her, her education or her character, as a whole. It was not his way.