thing, and it was very
different from having to deal with boys or men. It is easy enough to
spread out a boy upon a table, but not so with a young lady; so, too,
it is easy enough to tie a bandage around a boy's head, but vastly
different among combs and curls, and long hair done up behind. As the
principal assistant of Doctor Cabot, this complicated business devolved
upon me; and having, with the help of her mother, accomplished it, I
laid her head upon the pillow as carefully as if it had been my own
property. In all the previous cases I had found it necessary, in order
to steady my hand, to lean my elbow on the table, and my wrist on the
forehead of the patient I did the same with her, and, if I know myself
I never gazed into any eyes as I did into that young lady's one eye in
particular. When the doctor drew out the instrument, I certainly could
have taken her in my arms, but her imagination had been too powerful;
her eyes closed, a slight shudder seized her, and she fainted. That
passed off, and she rose with her eyes all right. A young gentleman was
in attendance to escort her to her home, and the smile had again
returned to her cheek as he told her that now her lover would not know
her.

This case had occupied a great deal of time; the doctor's labours were
doubled by the want of regular surgical aid, he was fatigued with the
excitement, and I was worn out; my head was actually swimming with
visions of bleeding and mutilated eyes, and I almost felt doubtful
about my own. The repetition of the operations had not accustomed me to
them; indeed, the last was more painful to me than the first, and I
felt willing to abandon forever the practice of surgery. Doctor Cabot
had explained the modus operandi fully to the medical gentlemen, had
offered to procure them instruments, and considering the thing fairly
introduced into the country, we determined to stop. But this was not so
easy; the crowd out of doors had their opinion on the subject; the
biscos considered that we were treating them outrageously, and became
as clamorous as a mob in a western city about to administer Lynch law.
One would not be kept back. He was a strapping youth, with cast enough
in his eye to carry everything before him, and had probably been
taunted all his life by merciless schoolboys. Forcing himself inside,
with his hands in his pockets, he said that he had the money to pay for
it, and would not be put off. We were obliged to apologize, and, w