It hinted at the existence of something stern and unapproachable in her daughter's character, which struck chill upon her, as the sight of poverty, or drunkenness, or the logic with which Mr.Hilbery sometimes thought good to demolish her certainty of an approaching millennium struck chill upon her.

She went back to her own table, and putting on her spectacles with a curious expression of quiet humility, addressed herself for the first time that morning to the task before her.

The shock with an unsympathetic world had a sobering effect on her.

For once, her industry surpassed her daughter's.

Katharine could not reduce the world to that particular perspective in which Harriet Martineau, for instance, was a figure of solid importance, and possessed of a genuine relationship to this figure or to that date.