When the tea came, and she had sipped a little, she perked up wonderfully. Said she, "Oh, the magic effect of food eaten judiciously! Now I am a lioness, and do not fear the future. Yes; I will tell you my story--and, if you think you are going to hear a love-story, you will be nicely caught--ha-ha! No, _sir;"_ said she, with rising fervor and heightened color, "you will hear a story the public is deeply interested in and does not know it; ay, a story that will certainly be referred to with wonder and shame, whenever civilization shall become a reality, and law cease to be a tool of injustice and monopoly." She paused a moment; then said a little doggedly, as one used to encounter prejudice, "I am a medical student; a would-be doctor."
"And so well qualified by genuine gifts, by study from my infancy, by zeal, quick senses, and cultivated judgment, that, were all the leading London physicians examined to-morrow by qualified persons at the same board as myself, most of those wealthy practitioners--not all, mind you-- would cut an indifferent figure in modern science compared with me, whom you have had to rescue from starvation--because I am a woman."
Her eye flashed. But she moderated herself, and said, "That is the outline; and it is a grievance. Now, grievances are bores. You can escape this one before it is too late."
"If it lies with me, I demand the minutest details," said Vizard, warmly.
"You shall have them; and true to the letter."
Vizard settled the small account, and adjourned, with his companion, to the garden. She walked by his side, with her face sometimes thoughtfully bent on the ground, and sometimes confronting him with ardor, and told him a true story, the simplicity of which I shall try not to spoil with any vulgar arts of fiction.
A LITTLE NARRATIVE OF DRY FACTS TOLD TO A WOMAN-HATER BY A WOMAN.
"My father was an American, my mother English. I was born near Epsom and lived there ten years. Then my father had property left him in Massachusetts, and we went to Boston. Both my parents educated me, and began very early. I observe that most parents are babies at teaching, compared with mine. My father was a linguist, and taught me to lisp German, French, and English; my mother was an ideaed woman: she taught me three rarities--attention, observation, and accuracy. If I went a walk in the country, I had to bring her home a budget: the men and women on the road, their dresses, appearance, countenances, and words; every kind of bird in the air, and insect and chrysalis in the hedges; the crops in the fields, the flowers and herbs on the banks. If I walked in the town, I must not be eyes and no eyes; woe betide me if I could only report the dresses! Really, I have known me, when I was but eight, come home to my mother laden with details, when perhaps an untrained girl of eighteen could only have specified that she had gone up and down a thoroughfare. Another time mother would take me on a visit: next day, or perhaps next week, she would expect me to describe every article of furniture in her friend's room, and the books on the table, and repeat the conversation, the topics at all events. She taught me to master history _accurately._ To do this she was artful enough to turn sport into science. She utilized a game: young people in Boston play it. A writes an anecdote on paper, or perhaps produces it in print. She reads it off to B. B goes away, and writes it down by memory; then reads her writing out to C. C has to listen, and convey her impression to paper. This she reads to D, and D goes and writes it. Then the original story and D's version are compared; and, generally speaking, the difference of the two is a caution-- against oral tradition. When the steps of deviation are observed, it is quite a study.
(Editor：year)