ortune depends. In such matters she now became lax.
And, besides the care of her person, she neglected the care of her
clothes, which had been so beneficial to her mind; for it must be
remembered that it was during those long hours of meditation, while
she sat sewing, that her reading had been digested, her knowledge
assimilated, her opinions formed, and her random thoughts collected
and arranged, ready to be turned to account on an emergency. Until
this time, too, she had kept Sunday strictly as a day of rest. Books
and work, and all else that had occupied her during the week, were put
away on Saturday night, and not taken out again until Monday morning;
and the consequence was complete mental relaxation. But now she began
to do all kinds of little things which she had hitherto thought it
wrong to do on Sunday, so that the sanitary effect of the day of
rest--or of change of occupation, for sometimes Sunday duties are
arduous--was gradually lost, and she no longer returned to her work on
Monday strengthened and refreshed. Little by little her "good reading"
was also neglected, and instead of relying upon her own resolution, as
had hitherto been her wont, she began to seek the prop of an odd cup
of tea or coffee at irregular hours, to raise her spirits if she felt
down, or stimulate her if she were out of sorts and work was not easy;
all of which tended to weaken her will. Then, by degrees, she began to
lose the balance of mind which had been wont to carry her on from one
little daily doing to another, with calm deliberation, taking them
each in turn without haste or rest, and finding time for them all.
Now, the things that she did not care about she began to do with a
rush, so as to get to her writing. She wanted to be always at that;
and the consequence was a wearing sensation, as of one who is driven
to death, and has never time enough for any single thing.

But it was in these days, nevertheless, that she began to write with
decision. Hitherto, she had been merely trying her pen--feeling her
way; but now she unconsciously ceased to follow in other people's
footsteps, and struck out for herself boldly. She had come back from
Ilverthorpe with a burning idea to be expressed, and it was for the
shortest, crispest, clearest way to express it that she tried. Foreign
phrases she discarded, and she never attempted to produce an eccentric
effect by galvanising obsolete words, rightly discarded for lack of
vitality, into a gha