Once upon a time, in a village far, far away, there lived a schoolmistress. The schoolmistress had come to the village as a young maid, and she had lived there alone for many years, teaching her pupils to read and write and debate. It was a bookish place, and education was so highly valued that there was no official ending point to it. Many pupils stayed in school well into their twenties. Some of her pupils were older than she was.

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