Is that your meaning ?" "Partially.

She manages to do everything in a different way from other people.

Her mind seems peculiarly independent, and she is so unreservedly Western in her ways and language.

But I was referring rather to her taste in books--she devours everything." "You mean as a student ?" "Well, yes, I suppose so; at least she appears to possess the faculty of absorbing every bit of information, like a sponge.

Sometimes she actually startles me with her odd questions; they are so unexpected and abstruse, falling from the lips of so young a girl.