Sentence:  ‘He he!' simpered Brass, who, in his deep debasement, really seemed to have changed sexes with his sister, and to have made over to her any spark of <WSD>manliness</WSD> he might have possessed. 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  The quality of being manly; the set of qualities, traits and abilities considered appropriate to men (as opposed to women or children); similarity to a man.