Finally, we can being to work in earnest.

Miss Annabella and I are finally free of one of the most severe impediments to her scholarship, and perhaps I may be able encourage her to follow the path of her mother, Professor Sophronia Haddington-Scott. The professor had been my mentor at Oxbridge, and I have done what I could since... leaving the university to nurture her daughter's education. Said nurturing has had a decade of blocks placed by a harridan.

Ever since the professor's cousin, Mrs Gertrude Manley, appeared on the Scott's doorstep, we have been saddled with the worst example of woman-hood I have yet the misfortune to meet. After blocking her attempts to claim the Professors' home, she and her child moved in, claiming they had no where else to go. She did not hide her tracks well enough, and after the first bills appeared from her dressmakers, I was able to find her late husband's solicitor, and routed that and all following bills to her handlers.

Still, her presence in the house meant she freed up more of her allowance, as the Great Aunts handled the rents and household expenses. No matter how she tried, that stupid cow did not get her hands on the accounts, and after the first arguments with the grocers in the village, she left it to me, as it was "beneath her" to do servant's work.

That same attitude left her daughter Elizabeth in my tutoring. I only hope that I was able to give the girl some tools to think for herself, but her mother was not interested in her scholarship, I was a glorified nurse to watch her girl while she courted Society, and perhaps snag a gentleman of means, with fewer wits than her first husband. I have had less time to work with Miss Elizabeth, as her mother seemed to realize she was too old to set her cap for the eligible bachelors, and was determined to use her daughter as a marriage pawn.

I did what I could, giving the girl the idea she could stand on her own, but now her mother has taken her off on a tour of the Continents, in search of a gentleman who has not been warned of her cold-blooded hunt. I wish them luck, boxed their things away in the attic, and changed the locks on the house.

We are comfortable in the Professors' home, and while she does not share the same passion for learning, Miss Annabella is a bright student, who shows promise - when her head is out of the clouds. Still, I am minded of the Great Aunts' conviction that the Professors are still alive, and of the notes I was able to... borrow from the University. As such, I have kept my field gear in good order, and ready to go at a moment's notice. Nan does not see the need for the field skills I have attempted to teach her, as we have not gone anywhere save for the Library and museums, but I feel the need to be prepared. We have finally been able to delve into some of the basic principles in the Professors' studies, and I hope we are not too late.