as the subject of a paper to
be read before the Society? I think there may be other young ladies at
the meeting, besides yourself, who are thinking of pursuing the study of
medicine. At any rate, there are a good many who are interested in the
subject; in fact, most people listen readily to anything doctors tell
them about their calling."

"I wish you would, doctor. I want Euthymia to hear it, and I don't doubt
there will be others who will be glad to hear everything you have to say
about it. But oh, doctor, if you could only persuade Eutbymia to become
a physician! What a doctor she would make! So strong, so calm, so full
of wisdom! I believe she could take the wheel of a steamboat in a storm,
or the hose of a fire-engine in a conflagration, and handle it as well
as the captain of the boat or of the fire-company."

"Have you ever talked with her about studying medicine?"

"Indeed I have. Oh, if she would only begin with me! What good times we
would have studying together!"

"I don't doubt it. Medicine is a very pleasant study. But how do you
think practice would be? How would you like being called up to ride ten
miles in a midnight snow-storm, just when one of your raging headaches
was racking you?"

"Oh, but we could go into partnership, and Euthymia is n't afraid of
storms or anything else. If she would only study medicine with me!"

"Well, what does she say to it?"

"She does n't like the thought of it. She does n't believe in women
doctors. She thinks that now and then a woman may be fitted for it by
nature, but she does n't think there are many who are. She gives me a
good many reasons against their practising medicine, you know what most
of them are, doctor,--and ends by saying that the same woman who would
be a poor sort of doctor would make a first-rate nurse; and that,
she thinks, is a woman's business, if her instinct carries her to the
hospital or sick-chamber. I can't argue her ideas out of her."

"Neither can I argue you out of your feeling about the matter; but I
am disposed to agree with your friend, that you will often spoil a good
nurse to make a poor doctor. Doctors and side-saddles don't seem to me
to go together. Riding habits would be awkward things for practitioners.
But come, we won't have a controversy just now. I am for giving women
every chance for a good education, and if they think medicine is one of
their proper callings let them try it. I think they will find that they
had better