forced to drive over hill and dale, and
be knocked about in a hard country practice for eight or ten years
before they went to town. "Plenty of time to read their books in June
and January," the doctor would grumble to himself, and turn to look
fondly at the long rows of his dear library acquaintances, his
Braithwaites and Lancets, and their younger brothers, beside the first
new Sydenham Society's books, with their clumsy blot of gilding. And
he would stand sometimes with his hands behind him and look at the
many familiar rows of brown leather-covered volumes, most of them
delightfully worn with his own use and that of the other physicians
whose generous friend and constant instructor he had been through
years of sometimes stormy but usually friendly intercourse and
association.

When people in general had grown tired of discussing this strange
freak and purpose of the doctor and his ward, and had become familiar
with Nan's persistent interest and occupation in her studies, there
came a time of great discontent to the two persons most concerned. For
it was impossible to disguise the fact that the time had again come
for the girl to go away from home. They had always looked forward to
this, and directed much thought and action toward it, and yet they
decided with great regret upon setting a new train of things in
motion.

While it was well enough and useful enough that Nan should go on with
her present mode of life, they both had a wider outlook, and though
with the excuse of her youthfulness they had put off her departure as
long as possible, still almost without any discussion it was decided
that she must enter the medical school to go through with its course
of instruction formally, and receive its authority to practice her
profession. They both felt that this held a great many unpleasantnesses
among its store of benefits. Nan was no longer to be shielded and
protected and guided by some one whose wisdom she rarely questioned,
but must make her own decisions instead, and give from her own bounty,
and stand in her lot and place. Her later school-days were sure to be
more trying than her earlier ones, as they carried her into deeper
waters of scholarship, and were more important to her future position
before the public.

If a young man plans the same course, everything conspires to help him
and forward him, and the very fact of his having chosen one of the
learned professions gives him a certain social preeminen