The Old Lady had reverted to her former humorous attitude, and was trying whether Juliana’s state of mind would not yield to skilfully directed banter.  In these tactics she was not left unsupported.  Louisa had written a long letter about her husband and her children, with a postscript.

“P.S.—­I don’t half like what you tell me about Juliana and Dr. C—.  For goodness’ sake don’t encourage her in any of that nonsense.  Sit on it.  Laugh her out of it.  I agree with you that it would be better if she cultivated her mind a little more.

“P.P.S.—­Andrew has just come in.  He says we oughtn’t to call her Juliana, but Fooliana.”

So laughed Louisa, the married woman.

And Fooliana she was called.  The joke was quite unworthy of the Greek Professor’s reputation, but for Mrs. Moon’s purposes he could hardly have made a better one.

Louisa had put a terrible weapon into the Old Lady’s hands.  It was many weapons in one.  It could be turned on in all its broad robust humour—­“Fooliana!” Or refined away into a playful or delicate suggestion, pointed with an uplifted finger—­“Fooli!” Or cut down and compressed into its essential meaning—­“Fool!”

But whichever missile came handy, the effect was much the same.  Juliana’s complexion grew redder or grayer, but her state of mind remained unchanged.  Sometimes the Old Lady tried a graver method.

“If you would cultivate your mind a little in the evenings you would have no time for all this nonsense.”

But Juliana had abandoned the cultivation of her mind.  She made no attempt to pay off that small outstanding debt to Sordello. There was an end of the intellectual life; for the living wells of literature were tainted; Browning had become a bitter memory and Tennyson a shame.

But if Miss Quincey had no heart for General Culture, she was busier than ever in the discharge of her regular duties.  At the end of the midsummer term the pressure on the staff was heavy.  Her work had grown with the growth of St. Sidwell’s, and the pile of marble and granite copy-books rose higher than ever; it was monumental, and Miss Quincey was glad enough to bury her grief under it for a time.  Indeed it looked as if in St. Sidwell’s she had found the shelter where she could hide her head; and a very desirable shelter too, as long as Mrs. Moon continued in that lively temper.  Gradually she began to realize that of all those five hundred pairs of eyes there was none that had discovered her secret; that not one of those busy brains was occupied with her affairs.  It was a relief to lose herself among them all and be of no account again.  In the corner behind Rhoda Vivian she and the Mad Hatter seemed to be clinging together more than ever in an ecstasy of isolation.