cket, the nurse, whom
the Doctor had chosen "on account of the _absence_ of her conversational
powers." Mrs. Physick was accordingly always trying to get me into her
chamber to sit with her. Mrs. Rocket accordingly did not like me, and
was always trying to get me out. Between these two contending powers
above, and the butcher, the baker, and candlestick-maker below, I was
neither solitary nor idle.

There was much to do, moreover, in answering the kind inquiries, and
receiving and disposing of the whips, jellies, _blanc-mangers_, and
other indigestible delicacies, sent in by anxious friends. These the
grateful Doctor pronounced, in the privacy of domestic life, "poison for
the patient, but not quite so bad for the attendants." Accordingly, we
ate them together sociably, at almost every meal; after which we went up
stairs and told "the patient" how good they were, while I presented her
gruel, and he would ask her, with an earnest air of judicial and
dispassionate investigation, whether that was not "nice." This conduct
she declared most unfeeling and ungrateful in us both, and bound herself
by many a vow to make us pay for it as soon as she had the ordering of
our dinners again. So we all made merry together over the little cradle
that was called "the pill-box." Its small tenant was from the first, as
I have hinted, a virtuous child, cried little, slept much, and when
awake rewarded our attentions by making such preposterous faces as
rendered it a most grateful task to watch him. I soon, therefore, became
much attached to him; and I enjoyed one at least of the chief elements
of the happiness of the individual,--the happiness of those among whom
the individual lives.

In the mean time my guardian sometimes discussed with me some other
things besides the jellies. For instance, "Katy," said he at one of our
_tete-a-tete_ dinners, "you walk out every day, I suppose; or, at least,
you ought. I wish you would call now and then, and take Nelly Fader with
you. She can hardly be a very entertaining companion to you, I own, but
it would be a charity; and, for your mother's daughter, that's enough."

"Certainly I will. By the way, speaking of her, what _did_ you mean by
what you said that day about female physicians?"

"I meant what I said," returned he, bluntly. "I meant just what I said.
We need them, and we shall have them. It is an experiment that has got
to be tried, and will be probably, within your lifetime, if not in min