Fifty-four years of preparation; and then the Evening of hard toil. Fifty-four years given to slow perfecting of the instrument; and then eighteen years of use for that instrument. This was what it came to. Not that her English life had been without its uses and its fruits; but the long, quiet home-existence had doubtless been mainly a making ready--or rather, a being made ready--for that which was to come after. The first was subordinate to the second.