g very much in earnest, reached
forward for the whip. "I want you to be a good woman, and I want you
to be all the use you can," he said. "It seems to me like stealing,
for men and women to live in the world and do nothing to make it
better. You have thought a great deal about this, and so have I, and
now we will do the best we can at making a good doctor of you. I don't
care whether people think it is a proper vocation for women or not. It
seems to me that it is more than proper for you, and God has given you
a fitness for it which it is a shame to waste. And if you ever
hesitate and regret what you have said, you won't have done yourself
any harm by learning how to take care of your own health and other
people's."

"But I shall never regret it," said Nan stoutly. "I don't believe I
should ever be fit for anything else, and you know as well as I that I
must have something to do. I used to wish over and over again that I
was a boy, when I was a little thing down at the farm, and the only
reason I had in the world was that I could be a doctor, like you."

"Better than that, I hope," said Dr. Leslie. "But you mustn't think it
will be a short piece of work; it will take more patience than you are
ready to give just now, and we will go on quietly and let it grow by
the way, like your water-weed here. If you don't drive a little
faster, Sister Willet may be gathered before we get to her;" and this
being a somewhat unwise and hysterical patient, whose recovery was not
in the least despaired of, Dr. Leslie and his young companion were
heartlessly merry over her case.

The doctor had been unprepared for such an episode; outwardly, life
had seemed to flow so easily from one set of circumstances to the
next, and the changes had been so gradual and so natural. He had
looked forward with such certainty to Nan's future, that it seemed
strange that the formal acceptance of such an inevitable idea as her
studying medicine should have troubled her so much.

Separated as he was from the groups of men and women who are
responsible for what we call the opinion of society, and independent
himself of any fettering conventionalities, he had grown careless of
what anybody might say. He only hoped, since his ward had found her
proper work, that she would hold to it, and of this he had little
doubt. The girl herself quickly lost sight of the fancied difficulty
of making the great decision, and, as is usually the case, saw all the
first obj