And their household gods looked down on them, miniatures and silhouettes
of Moons and Quinceys, calm and somewhat contemptuous presences. From the
post of honour above the mantelshelf, Tollington, attired as an Early
Victorian dandy, splendid in velvet waistcoat, scarf and chain-pin,
leaned on a broken column symbolical of his fortunes, and smiled genially
on the ruin he had made.
That was how Miss Quincey came to St. Sidwell's. And now she was
five-and-forty; she had always been five-and-forty; that is to say, she
had never been young, for to be young you must be happy. And this was so
far an advantage, that when middle-age came on her she felt no
difference.
CHAPTER III
Inaugural Addresses
It was evening, early in the winter term, and Miss Cursiter was giving
her usual inaugural address to the staff. Their number had increased so
considerably that the little class-room was packed to overflowing. Miss
Cursiter stood in the free space at the end, facing six rows of eager
faces arranged in the form of a horse-shoe. She looked upon them and
smiled; she joyed with the joy of the creator who sees his idea incarnate
before him.
A striking figure, Miss Cursiter. Tall, academic and austere; a keen
eagle head crowned with a mass of iron-grey hair; grey-black eyes burning
under a brow of ashen grey; an intelligence fervent with fire of the
enthusiast, cold with the renunciant's frost.
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