midnight
`` There 's no question of Mary 's working too hard , '' the Lady Principal said , bearing these hard sayings of Lady Anne 's with composure . `` She has fine brains . Whatever she wants in an intellectual way she can come at easily . '' Mary , indeed , took her B.A. without over-much burning of the midnight oil . Afterwards she always spoke with the tenderest affection of her old school-days . She recalled with delight the spacious class-rooms , the old garden with its great woodland trees , and the tiny rooms of the girls who were in residence at the College , with their quaint and pretty adornments -- the place of so much young _ camaraderie _ and soaring ambition and happy emulation . `` I can hardly remember that anyone was ever unkind , '' she used to say long afterwards .