She cried mentally for an ounce of civet.

There was upon her, too, that uneasy sense of shame which is apt to possess a reticent nature when it has been compelled, or tempted, to some unwonted freedom of speech.

Would it not have been better, she asked herself, to merely avoid the talk she found so hateful by resolutely advancing other topics?
Perhaps not; it was just possible that her words might bear some kind of fruit.

But she wished heartily that this task of hopeless teaching had never been proposed to her; it would trouble her waking every other day, and disturb with a profitless annoyance the ideal serenity for which she was striving.
Yet it had one good result; her mother's follies and weaknesses were very easy to bear in comparison, and, when the midday meal was over, she enjoyed with more fulness the peace of her father's room upstairs, where she had arranged a table for her own work.

Brilliant sunlight made the bare garret, with its outlook over the fields towards Pendal, a cheerful and homelike retreat.