as much gratified as I, when we all came forth from the fire
unscathed.

On the whole, except as regards health, I was a gainer rather than a
loser by the affair. I mean, of course, in the way of medical
reputation. I was by this time fairly established as a powder and pill
distributer, of the _first water_. In other words, I was beginning to be
regarded as a good family physician, and to be sought for, not only
within the narrow limits of my own native township, some four or five
miles square, but also quite beyond these narrow precincts. Occasionally
I had patients in three or four adjoining towns, and I was even
occasionally called as counsel to other physicians. My ambition was
high, perhaps higher than it ought to have been; but it had its checks
and even its valleys of humiliation; so that on the whole I retained my
sanity and a full measure of public confidence.

And yet, in conclusion, I have to confess that besides exposing my own
health, I made many medical blunders. I would not again run the risk to
health or reputation which, during this long trial of several months, I
certainly ran, for any sum of money which king Croesus or the
Rothschilds could command. Nor do I believe an intelligent physician can
do it, without being guilty of a moral wrong. Every one has his
province; let him carefully ascertain what that is, and confine himself
to it. The acting commander in an important military expedition has no
right to place himself in the ranks of those who are about to leap a
ditch, scale a wall, or charge bayonet. Paul has no right to labor in
Athens when he knows perfectly well that he can do more good in
Jerusalem, and the voice of God, by his Providence or otherwise, calls
him thither. And "to him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to
him it is sin."

CHAPTER XXXIV.

MILK PUNCH FEVER.

A certain young woman who had great general confidence in my skill,
after I had stood by her many long hours in one of Nature's sorest
trials, was left at length in a fair way to recover, except that she was
exceedingly exhausted, and needed the most careful attendance on the
part of those around her. She no longer needed any medicine, nothing but
to be let alone. In other words, she needed nothing but good nursing and
entire freedom from all care and responsibility.

Being obliged at this juncture to leave her for nearly the whole night,
I gave the best directions to her principal nurse of which I was
c