It was odd how these things happened.

Miss Quincey was neither brilliant nor efficient, but she had made the most of herself; at least she had lived a life of grinding intellectual toil; the whole woman had seemed absorbed in her miserable arithmetical function.

And yet at fifty (she looked fifty) she had contrived to develop that particular form of foolishness which it was Miss Cursiter's business to exterminate.

There were some of them who talked as if the thing was done; as if competitive examinations had superseded the primitive rivalry of sex.
Bastian Cautley was right.

You may go on building as high as you please, but you will never alter the original ground-plan of human nature.