That the recognized work was in itself no sinecure may be gathered from her report for the Michaelmas term. She has “good,” sometimes “very good” reports in all her seven classes,—four of them being signed by F. D. Maurice, E. H. Plumptre and R. C. Trench. The classes were arithmetic, geometry and algebra, English language and composition, French, history, natural philosophy and astronomy, theology, and church history. She was popular with her fellow-students, and particularly so with Miss Agnes Wodehouse (afterwards Mrs. Williams) whom she greatly admired, and of whom she made, incidentally, as profound a study as she did of her Euclid and history. “How few ladies there are!” she concludes. “Agnes Wodehouse is thorough. So is my Mother. Few else.” And again in this connection, “I believe I love women too much ever to love a man. Yet who can tell? Well, S. J.-B., don’t get sentimental, for patience’ sake.” Unfortunately she was not so appreciative of one of the younger women who was more or less in authority over her. The new student meant no harm, but she took playful liberties, and no doubt, as formerly at school, amused the other girls by her wit and audacity. After a good deal of sparring and chaffing, things came to an _impasse_, and it was judged better by all concerned that S. J.-B. should seek a home for herself elsewhere. This was not an easy matter in those days when hostels and homes of residence for women students were unknown; and so, to the other work of her life, was added the toil of tramping about in search of suitable quarters. She made a number of unfortunate ventures, sampling experiences familiar enough to the middle-class bachelor woman of the present day, though somewhat staggering to the well-bred mid-Victorian girl. The bankrupt householder, the drunken landlady, the undesirable male lodger, “and other fauna,” formed part of the things that had to be taken—and were taken most pluckily—in the day’s work. If S. J.-B. was instrumental in bringing ill-fortune on herself—as was not infrequently the case—she never sat down and howled,—she never even thought of giving in: she simply put her shoulder to the wheel and went on with what she had been doing. And so it was now, under very difficult conditions, for, once and again, hopes were raised, hopes were dashed, and the weary struggle began afresh,—with many bad headaches and occasional sore throats to complicate matters. “Quite an experience of troubles,” writes Mrs. Jex-Blake, “as much as if you had lived many years. I think no one could have acted more wisely than you have done”: and again, “I wish I were near, yet I don’t think I could be a real help: it is not in my way.” And the same might have been said by many other friends. Greater drawbacks were involved then than now in leaving one’s own social groove. “You have behaved very sensibly through the whole trial, which has not been a light one,” says her Father. In her diary she writes,—