I think she did two whole pages of a's, and really performed them satisfactorily, before she asked to go on to b's.

Yes! I believe she will do." "I hope she will do her work, any how," said Selina, breaking into the conversation rather crossly.

"I'm sure I don't see the good of wasting time over teaching Elizabeth to write, when there's so much to be done in the house by one and all of us, from Monday morning till Saturday night." "Ay, that's it," answered Hilary, meditatively.

"I don't see how I ever shall get time to teach her, and she is so tired of nights when the work is all done; she'll be dropping asleep with the pen in her hand--I have done it myself before now." Ay, in those days when, trying so hard to "improve her mind," and make herself a little more equal and companionable to another mind she knew, she had, after her daily house cares and her six hours of school teaching, attempted at nine P.M.to begin close study on her own account.

And though with her strong will she succeeded tolerably, still, as she told Johanna, she could well understand how slow was the, "march of intellect" (a phrase which had just then come up) among day laborers and the like; and how difficult it was for these Mechanics Institutions, which were now talked so much of, to put any new ideas into the poor tired heads, rendered sluggish and stupid with hard bodily labor, "Suppose I were to hold my Polynesian Academy on a Sunday ?" and she looked inquiringly at her sisters, especially Johanna.
Now the Misses Leaf were old fashioned country folk, who lived before the words Sabbatarian and un-Sabbatarian had ever got into the English language.